Marsh’s the second quarter of 2026 revenue climbed to $7.4 billion, up 6% from a year earlier, and adjusted earnings per share rose 9% to $2.96. Underneath that headline, though, sits a split screen: consulting businesses compounding at double-digit underlying rates while the reinsurance broking arm shrank as the property-catastrophe cycle turns.
Guy Carpenter is where the cycle bites
Marsh runs its brokerage operations through Risk & Insurance Services, which brought in $4.8 billion in the quarter, up 4% (3% underlying). That segment total masks two very different stories. Marsh Risk, the retail and commercial brokerage arm, generated $4.1 billion, up 6% (4% underlying) — a solid, unremarkable quarter. Guy Carpenter, the reinsurance broking unit, went the other way entirely, with revenue of $664 million, a 2% decline on both a GAAP and underlying basis, according to Marsh’s second-quarter 2026 results statement.
That contraction lands at a moment when reinsurers themselves are guiding more cautiously as property-catastrophe pricing softens — a dynamic Munich Re flagged when it disclosed a drop in reinsurance-related revenue as guidance tightened amid cycle pressure earlier this year. For a broker whose reinsurance arm sits directly on that pricing cycle, a negative quarter is less an anomaly than an early read on how far the softening has to run.
Consulting is now the growth engine
While Guy Carpenter contracted, Marsh’s Consulting segment did the opposite. Consulting revenue reached $2.6 billion, up 10% (8% underlying) for the quarter. Mercer, the benefits and workforce advisory business, contributed $1.6 billion, up 7% (5% underlying). Marsh Management Consulting, the Oliver Wyman-branded strategy and risk advisory business, was the standout: $1.0 billion in revenue, up 15%, or 13% on an underlying basis, a pace confirmed in the full earnings release filed with the quarter’s results.
Underlying growth in the high single to low double digits for an advisory business is a different growth profile than brokerage, and it tracks a broader thesis about where insurance-adjacent demand is heading: Moody’s has argued that technology and AI-driven advisory work is becoming a durable growth driver for brokers, a case laid out in its note on how technology and AI advisory demand is reshaping broker growth. On this quarter’s evidence, Marsh’s consulting arms — not its risk brokerage — are doing the heavy lifting.
A two-speed quarter, benchmarked against Aon
Marsh’s 6% overall revenue growth and 5% underlying revenue growth land in the same range Aon posted in its own recent quarter, detailed in Aon’s first-quarter revenue increase reported earlier this year. That near-identical headline number obscures how differently the two firms got there. Aon’s growth carried its own one-off dynamics, while Marsh’s blended figure nets a contracting reinsurance unit against double-digit consulting growth. Two of the industry’s largest diversified brokers are arriving at similar top-line results through very different segment mixes — which makes the headline percentage a weaker signal of underlying health than it looks.
Group-wide, GAAP operating income increased 4% and adjusted operating income increased 5% for the quarter, while GAAP EPS came in at $2.63 against the $2.96 adjusted figure. For the first six months of 2026, consolidated revenue reached $15.0 billion, up 7% on a GAAP basis or 4% underlying — a run rate consistent with a company that now counts $27 billion in annual revenue and more than 95,000 colleagues worldwide.
What the buyback is really hedging
Marsh leaned on capital return to reinforce the quarter’s narrative. The company disclosed the return of capital in the same results statement that detailed the buyback and dividend increase: a repurchase of roughly 4.5 million shares for $750 million during the quarter. Separately, on July 8, 2026, the board raised the quarterly dividend 10% to $0.990 per share, payable August 14, 2026.
Read against a segment mix where reinsurance broking is contracting, that buyback and dividend increase do double duty. They are a straightforward return of capital to shareholders, but they also function as a hedge — a way of keeping per-share metrics moving in the right direction even if Guy Carpenter’s revenue keeps softening alongside the reinsurance rate cycle. Whether a fully diversified broker model can keep compounding earnings through a soft reinsurance market, largely on the back of consulting, is the real question this quarter poses — and one more quarter of Guy Carpenter contraction would start to test it in earnest.
