The Clear Group acquired Shire Insurance Services in January 2026, adding a specialist broker with more than four decades of experience serving the UK veterinary sector to its growing insurance platform.
Established in 1981, Shire Insurance Services has developed a strong position providing tailored insurance solutions to veterinary practices across the UK. The transaction marked The Clear Group’s first acquisition of 2026 and supported its strategy of expanding through established businesses with specialist expertise and strong client relationships.
Capital & Trust supported The Clear Group throughout the transaction, providing strategic guidance, regulatory expertise, detailed evaluation and transaction management.
Strengthening specialist expertise
The Clear Group has continued to grow its presence across the UK insurance market through targeted acquisitions, combining increased scale with the addition of specialist capabilities.
Shire Insurance Services represented a natural fit within that strategy. Its long-standing presence in the veterinary insurance market, established client relationships and sector-specific expertise provide The Clear Group with further depth in a specialist area of the market.
The acquisition therefore extends beyond geographical or portfolio expansion. By bringing an established specialist broker into the group, Clear strengthens the range of expertise available across its wider platform while supporting its continued growth in the UK insurance market.
Capital & Trust’s role
Capital & Trust supported The Clear Group across the transaction process, combining strategic planning with detailed analysis and an understanding of the regulatory considerations associated with the insurance sector.
Our work included helping to shape the transaction approach in line with The Clear Group’s wider objectives, providing regulatory expertise around relevant sector requirements and conducting detailed evaluation of information supporting the acquisition.
Capital & Trust also provided transaction management to maintain progress, coordination and alignment between the parties throughout the process.
This combination of strategic direction, regulatory understanding and detailed analysis helped The Clear Group navigate the transaction in a structured way while maintaining focus on the commercial objectives behind the acquisition.
Our perspective
The acquisition highlights the role that specialist expertise can play in insurance-sector consolidation.
For larger insurance groups pursuing acquisition-led growth, scale is clearly important, but the value of an acquisition can also lie in the depth of expertise it introduces. Businesses operating within specialist markets often bring established client relationships alongside a detailed understanding of the particular risks and insurance requirements of the sectors they serve.
That can make niche brokers strategically attractive to larger platforms looking to broaden their capabilities without losing the specialist knowledge that has supported those businesses' success.
Shire Insurance Services is a good example. Its position within the veterinary sector gives The Clear Group access not simply to an additional client base, but to expertise developed over more than four decades within a distinct market.
As consolidation continues across insurance, the ability to combine the infrastructure and resources of larger groups with the expertise and relationships of specialist brokers can be an important part of building stronger and more diversified platforms.
