Who Owns Marsh?

Marsh traces its origin to 1871, when Henry W. Marsh established an insurance business in New York after observing how many insurers failed following the Great Chicago Fire. In 1905, Marsh partnered with Donald R. McLennan and Daniel W. Burroughs to form Burroughs, Marsh & McLennan in Chicago. When Burroughs retired in 1906, the firm became Marsh & McLennan.

The founders introduced a then-radical idea: the broker acts as a buyer of insurance on behalf of the client rather than as a seller of policies for the insurance company. That client-first positioning became the foundation of modern insurance broking and risk management. By 1917, the year the United States entered World War I, Marsh & McLennan operated offices across the country.

The firm incorporated in 1923 and made its first major acquisition that same year, absorbing Guy Carpenter & Company after founder Guy Carpenter met Marsh and McLennan on a transatlantic crossing. The firm went public in 1962. Through the second half of the twentieth century, Marsh grew into the dominant global broker, expanding into London, the world's most important insurance market, and building specialty practices in areas like aviation, marine, and financial lines.

In 2004, Marsh was at the center of the insurance industry's biggest scandal. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer alleged the firm rigged bids and steered clients to insurers that paid contingent commissions. Marsh settled for $850 million, eliminated contingent commissions, and replaced CEO Jeffrey Greenberg. The settlement reshaped broker compensation disclosure industry-wide.

Marsh McLennan Agency, the business serving middle-market clients in North America, was created in 2009 and expanded through dozens of regional agency acquisitions. In November 2024, the parent company completed its largest acquisition ever, buying McGriff Insurance Services for $7.75 billion and folding its 3,500-plus colleagues into Marsh McLennan Agency.

In October 2025, Marsh McLennan announced it would adopt Marsh as its single corporate masterbrand effective January 2026. The new identity, designed by the company's own Lippincott consultancy, debuted at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026. The insurance broking business is now reported as Marsh Risk in financial statements, while the Marsh name also identifies the entire corporation.