Employment
818,561
Total employees (Census CBP)
Finance and Insurance ·NAICS 52421
NAICS 52421 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Insurance Agencies and Brokerages - Industry Benchmarks
$90,831/yr average annual pay, with 4,754 SBA loans on record for NAICS 52421.
- 20.1%
- Finance and Insurance sector margin
- 819K
- Workers employed
- $90,831/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $2.2B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 52421
California leads Insurance Agencies and Brokerages activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Finance and Insurance sector runs a 20.1% net margin.
- 20.1%
- Finance and Insurance sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 819K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $90,831/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $2.2B
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Insurance Agencies and Brokerages
Insurance Agencies and Brokerages sits inside Finance and Insurance, a sector that runs a 20.1% net margin overall.
133,728 establishments employ 818,561 workers (6.1/location) at $90,831/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Florida.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$90,831/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
133,728
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 10,928; establishment count decreased by 1,372. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $74.4B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 6.1
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Insurance Agencies and Brokerages NAICS 524210 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 83,259 |
| Texas | 78,885 |
| Florida | 69,499 |
| New York | 51,373 |
| Illinois | 40,486 |
| Pennsylvania | 34,382 |
| Ohio | 27,942 |
| Georgia | 27,468 |
| North Carolina | 26,949 |
| Michigan | 26,370 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
4,754
Total Loan Volume
$2.2B
Avg Loan Size
$472K
Jobs Supported
24,962
Program Breakdown
7(a) 4,249 (89%)
504 505 (11%)
Top SBA Lender
Live Oak Banking Company
373 loans in this industry
New Business Share
17.6% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 721
2021 903
2022 719
2023 599
2024 765
2025 942
2026 105
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Insurance Agencies and Brokerages?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 52421 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Finance and Insurance sector runs a 20.1% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Insurance Agencies and Brokerages?
133,728 business establishments. Together they employ 818,561 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Insurance Agencies and Brokerages?
$90,831/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 6.1 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Insurance Agencies and Brokerages employment?
California leads with 83,259 workers. Texas (78,885) and Florida (69,499) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Insurance Agencies and Brokerages receive?
Insurance Agencies and Brokerages businesses received 4,754 SBA loans totaling $2.2 billion between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $472K. These loans supported 24,962 jobs at origination. Most lending (89%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Comparable industry benchmarks
These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.
How this ranks: Its Census employment total exceeds 93% of that same 551-industry cohort. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.
Closest workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
Benchmarking Insurance Agencies and Brokerages
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Finance and Insurance
- 133,728 establishments, 818,561 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 4,754 SBA loans on record. SBA lending rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 52421 · Data year: 2023
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.