Case Overview
Streamlining a Broker’s Portfolio Through Structured Exit Options
A rigorous profitability review and a structured decision-support process for exiting or restructuring underperforming lines.
INDUSTRY
Insurance broking
SERVICE PROVIDED
Strategy & Business Design · Portfolio Strategy
ENGAGEMENT TYPE
Portfolio profitability review and strategic option support
THE CHALLENGE
An established insurance broker had built a broad product and service portfolio over many years, adding lines of business opportunistically rather than through any deliberate, periodic review. By the time the broker sought outside perspective, several products were no longer profitable, and resources were spread thin across the full portfolio, meaning genuinely profitable lines weren’t receiving the attention they deserved. Leadership understood difficult decisions lay ahead but lacked a structured way to evaluate the genuine options available for each underperforming line.
THE APPROACH
The engagement began with a rigorous, product-by-product profitability review across the broker’s full portfolio, going beyond headline revenue figures to properly account for administrative cost, specialist resource time and risk exposure. For each underperforming line identified, a structured set of strategic options was developed and evaluated on its individual merits: closing the book entirely, selling it to a better-positioned buyer, or restructuring pricing and resourcing where a credible path back to profitability was genuinely realistic. A significant part of the engagement was dedicated to supporting leadership directly through the decision-making process, and then into the practical process of execution.
THE OUTCOME
The portfolio review gave the broker, for the first time, a genuinely clear and evidenced picture of which parts of its business were creating value. Some lines were closed where no credible path to profitability existed; others were sold to better-positioned buyers, allowing the broker to exit responsibly; others were retained but restructured. Resources freed from underperforming lines were redirected toward the broker’s genuinely profitable business, and the broker came away with a repeatable framework for reviewing portfolio profitability on an ongoing basis.
Having someone stress-test the decision with us, not just hand us a report, was the difference between knowing what to do and actually being able to do it.
