After a strong start to the year, insurance merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in first-quarter 2020 quickly cooled with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, says a new report from MarshBerry.

At the start of the year, buyers were well-capitalized and eager for deals. However, many transactions that were planned to close in early April or May have now been pushed back 30-90 days, mostly due to logistics of confirmatory financial and legal due diligence, MarshBerry explains.

Nonetheless, a total of 134 insurance deals were announced in Q1, with 19 buyers completing two or more transactions, accounting for 72.4% of all deals.