Marsh grew Q2 2026 revenue 6% (5% organic) to $7.4B and GAAP EPS 7% to $2.63: Consulting (+8% organic) led while falling insurance and reinsurance prices trimmed the broking margin.
Revenue
$7.4B
+6.2% YoY
Net income
$1.3B
+4.5% YoY
Diluted EPS
$2.63
+7.3% YoY
Operating margin
25.6%
Consulting drove Q2 while insurance broking slowed as premium rates fell
Marsh & McLennan Companies (which now trades as Marsh, ticker MRSH) grew second-quarter 2026 revenue 6% to $7.40 billion. GAAP diluted EPS rose 7% to $2.63. The growth was lopsided. The Consulting segment (Mercer and Marsh Management Consulting) grew revenue 10%, or 8% on an underlying basis. The larger Risk & Insurance Services segment (Marsh Risk and Guy Carpenter) grew only 4%, or 3% underlying. Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter shrank 2% as reinsurance prices fell. Because falling prices shrink commissions, margins in the broking business went slightly backward even as revenue grew.
A note on the names: from January 14, 2026 the company rebranded itself from "Marsh McLennan" to "Marsh", its insurance broker from Marsh to Marsh Risk, and Oliver Wyman to Marsh Management Consulting. Mercer and Guy Carpenter kept their names. The legal entity is still Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.
Key figures
Metric
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
YoY Change
Revenue
$7,404M
$6,974M
+6.2%
Underlying ("organic") revenue growth
+5%
n/a
n/a
Operating income (GAAP)
$1,899M
$1,829M
+3.8%
Operating margin (GAAP)
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Source: Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, and the Q2 2026 earnings release (Exhibit 99.1 to the July 21, 2026 8-K) for the adjusted figures. Percentage changes are computed from the reported figures.
How much of the growth was organic?
Marsh buys a steady stream of smaller brokers and consultancies, including the large McGriff Insurance Services acquisition, which is still generating integration costs. That makes the headline growth rate a poor guide on its own. The company therefore reports underlying revenue growth: growth after stripping out currency movements, acquisitions and disposals. This is the closest thing to "same business, same exchange rates, year over year."
For Q2, the 10-Q splits the 6% reported growth into 5% underlying, 1% from a weaker U.S. dollar, and 1% from acquisitions (the parts don't add up exactly because of rounding). So this was mostly organic growth. The currency tailwind is real, though: per the MD&A, the weaker dollar lifted consolidated revenue, expenses and operating income by about 1% in the quarter and about 2% in the first half.
Risk & Insurance Services: new business outran falling prices, barely
Business
Q2 2026 revenue
Reported growth
Underlying growth
Marsh Risk (insurance broking)
$4.1B
+6%
+4%
Guy Carpenter (reinsurance broking)
$664M
-2%
-2%
Mercer
$1.6B
+7%
+5%
Marsh Management Consulting
$1.0B
+15%
+13%
Marsh Risk. Per the 10-Q, underlying growth at Marsh Risk "was driven by higher new business and renewal revenue, partially offset by declining insurance premium rates." Brokers are mostly paid as a percentage of the premiums their clients pay, so when insurers cut prices, the broker earns less on the same policy. Marsh Risk grew anyway by winning more clients and renewing existing ones. U.S./Canada grew 4% underlying. International grew 5%: Latin America 8%, EMEA 5% and Asia Pacific 5%.
Guy Carpenter places reinsurance, the insurance that insurers buy for themselves. Its revenue fell $13 million to $664 million, "driven primarily by declining reinsurance premium rates." For the first half as a whole, Guy Carpenter was flat underlying, with new business offset by lower prices.
Margin. The segment's GAAP operating margin slipped to 30.6% from 31.2%, and the company's adjusted margin fell to 35.3% from 35.6%. Operating margin means the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax. The 10-Q names two pressures:
Pay: segment expenses rose 5%, "driven primarily by higher base salaries," against 4% revenue growth.
Lower interest on client money: brokers hold premiums in transit between clients and insurers and keep the interest on that cash. This "fiduciary interest income" fell $11 million to $88 million "due to lower average interest rates." It costs almost nothing to earn, so nearly all of the drop comes straight out of profit.
The segment also carried $44 million of McGriff integration and retention costs and $39 million of restructuring charges in the quarter. The company excludes both from adjusted results.
Consulting: the stronger half of the business
Consulting revenue rose $231 million to $2.6 billion, and operating income rose 10% to $502 million (margin 19.3% vs. 19.2%).
Marsh Management Consulting (formerly Oliver Wyman) grew 13% underlying to $1.0 billion. The 10-Q attributes this to "growth in most regions." That is the fastest growth anywhere in the group.
Mercer grew 5% underlying. Wealth rose 8%, "driven by investment management, primarily reflecting positive net flows from new business and the impact of capital markets." Part of that comes from fees on assets under management, which rise when markets rise, not only from winning new clients. Health rose 3% and Career 2%.
Consulting expenses rose 10%, in line with revenue, "driven by higher incentive compensation and base salaries." So the faster growth didn't meaningfully widen the margin.
Below operating income: buybacks and a lower tax rate lifted EPS
GAAP EPS grew 7.3%, noticeably faster than net income (+4.5%). The difference is share count. Marsh repurchased about 4.5 million shares for $750 million in Q2 ($1.5 billion and 8.7 million shares in the first half), cutting diluted shares to 482 million from 495 million a year earlier (-2.6%). The effective tax rate also fell to 24.2% from 25.2%. Partly offsetting this, interest expense rose $7 million to $250 million on higher short-term debt, and investment results swung to a $5 million loss from a $7 million gain on mark-to-market losses.
Adjusted EPS of $2.96 (+9%) excludes restructuring ($58M), McGriff integration ($47M), changes in acquisition earn-out estimates ($15M), amortization of acquired intangibles ($137M) and other items. It also removes the $50 million of pension "other net benefit credits" from income. That last adjustment works against the company's own adjusted number, since it lowers adjusted EPS.
The first half is distorted by the Greensill charge
For the six months, revenue rose 7% (4% underlying) to $15.0 billion. But GAAP operating income fell 5% to $3.65 billion, and diluted EPS fell 5% to $4.99 from $5.23. The reason is a one-off Q1 charge: a $425 million estimated liability and legal expenses tied to the Greensill litigation in Australia. The claims arise from trade-credit insurance that Marsh placed for the collapsed supply-chain lender Greensill Capital. In June 2026 Marsh reached a settlement with Greensill Bank and its insolvency administrator. The 10-Q says the recorded liability reflects that settlement plus management's best estimate for the remaining Credit Suisse claims in the Australian proceedings. Excluding it and other adjusted items, first-half adjusted EPS rose 8% to $6.25.
Cash from operations was $835 million in the first half, down from $1.0 billion a year earlier. The 10-Q attributes the working-capital swings mainly to the timing of accrued-liability payments, including incentive compensation, and of receivable collections.
Takeaway: Marsh's growth now depends more on its consulting arms than on insurance broking. Marsh Risk still posted 4% organic growth by adding new business, but falling insurance and reinsurance prices, lower interest on client funds and higher salaries trimmed the broking margin (adjusted 35.3% vs. 35.6%). Consulting, led by 13% organic growth at the former Oliver Wyman, carried the quarter. Buybacks and a lower tax rate turned 4% operating-income growth into 7% EPS growth.
Outlook
The Q2 filing and earnings release give no numerical full-year guidance for revenue, margin or EPS. The concrete forward commitments are:
Thrive restructuring program: about $500 million of costs over three years (launched Q3 2025), targeting about $400 million of annualized savings. Marsh expects savings and charges to be spread evenly over the program. $239 million had been incurred by June 30, 2026. That is roughly half of the budget, with no disclosure of how much of the savings has already shown up in results.
Dividend: raised 10% to $0.990 per quarter in July 2026.
Credit facility: the revolving credit line was expanded to $4.25 billion from $3.5 billion and extended to June 2031.
Our read: the broking side faces a pricing headwind with no sign of easing in this filing. Both Marsh Risk and Guy Carpenter cite declining premium rates, and the 10-Q's risk language flags "lower interest rates," which would keep squeezing fiduciary income. Organic growth in Risk & Insurance Services has settled around 3%. Keeping consolidated underlying growth near 5% therefore depends on Consulting holding up. Management-consulting demand at the 13% pace seen this quarter tends to be cyclical, and Mercer's Wealth growth partly depends on markets. What would change the margin story is Thrive savings arriving faster than wage inflation. The Q2 figures don't show that yet: consolidated operating expenses grew 7% against 6% revenue growth.