Brown & Brown revenue up 5.4% in second quarter

Brown & Brown Inc. second-quarter revenue increased 5.4% over those of same period in 2014 to $419.5 million, the Daytona Beach, Florida-based broker said.

Net income, however, fell slightly from the comparable quarter in 2014, dropping 1.3% to $61.0 million. Total commission and fee income rose 5.7% to $417.2 million, the broker said Monday in its earnings report.

For the first half of the year, revenue increased 8.2% from the first half of 2014 to $823.7 million. Net income for the first six months of the year rose 3.3% over that same period of 2014 to $118.0 million. Total fees and commissions for the first half of the year rose 8.5% from those of the first six months of 2014 to $821.0 million.

“We are pleased with another quarter of organic growth across all divisions,” said Brown & Brown President and CEO J. Powell Brown in a statement accompanying the earnings release.

“During the second quarter, we also acquired several new firms and invested in additional teammates that will position us for further growth in the future,” he said in the statement.

In a conference call Tuesday morning, Mr. Brown noted that downward pressure on insurance rates is affecting the market, and that he expects the trend to continue.

In a research note, Mark Dwelle, an insurance analyst at RBC Capital Markets, a unit of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. in Richmond, Virginia, said the broker’s performance fell somewhat short of expectations, particularly in regard to organic growth.

“Total commission and fee revenue rose 5.7% to $417.2 million, short of our 8.3% expectation,” he wrote. “Overall organic revenue growth amounted to 1.9%, the slowest growth rate in several quarters and short of our 3.0% expectation.”