Insurance companies in Memphis: 563 offices in three states, mostly agencies, and how to check one

This is for Memphians and Mid-South businesses looking for an insurance company: to buy cover, to fix a claim, to find work, or to find customers. It sizes the market from Census data, shows how little of it is carriers, explains which regulator to use depending on which side of the state line you're on, and covers selling to the agencies that dominate it. It doesn't recommend carriers.

The market in numbers

The Memphis metro (CBSA 32820) spans Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. County Business Patterns 2023:

Shelby County has 79% of the establishments and 94% of the jobs. "Not reported" means the Census Bureau published the number but flagged it, because the noise it adds to protect confidentiality changed it by 5% or more.

We worked out average pay from payroll and headcount. Carrier employment as a whole is flagged as high-noise, as is employment at the 17 life and 25 health insurer offices. What's clear is that carriers are a small share here: 13% of establishments against 16% nationally, and the 26 property and casualty offices employ only 149 people between them. Third-party administrators, which handle claims and benefits for insurers and self-insured employers, employ more people than the agencies do: 2,691 at 28 offices.

The two largest classes aren't published for the metro; the published ones add to 561, so two establishments have 500 or more employees and eight have 100 or more (derived as the total less the smaller bands). 529 have fewer than 20 employees.

These are establishments with paid employees, not companies, so a national insurer's Memphis claims office counts here but its head office doesn't, and agents working alone without staff aren't counted.

Who is based in Memphis

None of the SEC-registered listed insurers is headquartered in the Memphis metro. Tennessee's List of Licensed Insurance Companies, as of 30 September 2026, has 2,129 insurers, of which 66 are chartered in Tennessee. Only one lists its main administrative office in Memphis: Paratransit Insurance Company, a Mutual Risk Retention Group. None lists a main office in Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Cordova or the Mississippi suburbs. The carrier offices in the metro are branches, claims centers and sales offices of insurers run elsewhere; the national names are in the largest insurance companies in the US.

Checking a company or agent: which state?

The regulator is the one for the state where your policy was written.

1. Tennessee (Shelby, Tipton, Fayette). The Department of Commerce and Insurance publishes its List of Licensed Insurance Companies, with each insurer's NAIC code, state of charter, type, address and status, and a Verify an Insurance License page for agents. To complain, use its online form, or print the form and send it to Consumer Insurance Services, 500 James Robertson Parkway, 10th Floor, Nashville; questions go to 615-741-2218 or 1-800-342-4029. The Department's complaint page links each company's complaint data to the NAIC's Consumer Insurance Search.
2. Mississippi (DeSoto, Marshall, Tate, Tunica). The Mississippi Insurance Department offers a company licensing search and separate complaint forms for insurers and agents.
3. Arkansas (Crittenden). The Arkansas Insurance Department licenses insurers and agents for policies written in Arkansas.
4. Everywhere. The NAIC's Consumer Insurance Search reports complaints, licenses and financial information by insurer; use the legal name on your policy.

Insurance jobs

Agencies paid an average of $85,649 in 2023 and third-party administrators $95,284, against a national agency average of $90,831 (our calculation from County Business Patterns). With few carrier head-office jobs, most local insurance careers are in agencies, administrators and the claims and sales offices of national insurers.

Selling to Memphis agencies

The buyers are agency owners: 396 of the 443 agencies have fewer than ten employees. They buy agency management and quoting software, certificate and compliance tools, websites and lead generation. Memphis is a freight town, so commercial auto and cargo are a bigger part of some agencies' books than elsewhere, which gives specialist vendors an opening.

Illustrative example. The company, rates and results are invented.

Bluff City Certs (bluff-city-certs.example) sells software that issues and tracks certificates of insurance for agencies with trucking clients, who ask for certificates every time a shipper or broker onboards them. It targets metro agencies with 5 to 49 employees: 85 plus 35 plus 7, or 127. It keeps those that advertise trucking or commercial auto, an assumed 20%, or 25. Calls and emails to each owner, at a 12% reply rate, give 3 conversations; two customers at $7,200 a year bring $14,400. Finding the 25 trucking agencies among 127 is research Bebop does from a plain-language description. The guide to selling to small businesses covers pricing for buyers this size.

Next step: see the region's wider economy in companies in Memphis.