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Aon Corp. - Insurance Brokers -
Category Directory
(312)
381-1000
200
E. Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60601
www.aon.com
Sales
$9.8
billion
Business Description
Aon Corporation ("Aon"), through its various subsidiaries worldwide, serves
its clients through three operating segments:
• Risk and Insurance Brokerage Services acts as an advisor and insurance
broker, which helps clients manage their risks, and negotiates and places
insurance risk with insurance carriers through our global distribution
network.
• Consulting provides advice and services to clients for employee benefits,
compensation, management consulting, communications and human resources
outsourcing.
• Insurance Underwriting provides specialty insurance products, including
supplemental accident, health and life insurance; credit life, accident and
health insurance; extended warranty products, and select property and
casualty insurance products and services.
Our clients include corporations and businesses, insurance companies,
professional organizations, independent agents and brokers, governments, and
other entities. We also serve individuals through personal lines, affinity
groups, and certain specialty operations.
Incorporated in 1979, Aon is the parent corporation of long-established and
more recently formed companies. Today the company has approximately 54,000
employees in more than 125 countries and sovereignties.
Competition and Industry Position
(1) Risk and Insurance Brokerage Services
The Risk and Insurance Brokerage Services segment generated approximately
58% of our total operating segment revenues in 2003. This is the largest of
our operating segments, with approximately 37,000 employees worldwide. Risk
and insurance brokerage services are provided by certain indirect
subsidiaries, including Aon Risk Services Companies, Inc.; Aon Holdings
International bv; Aon Services Group, Inc.; Aon Re Worldwide, Inc.; Aon
Limited (U.K.); and Cananwill, Inc.
Our retail brokerage companies operate in a highly competitive industry and
compete with a large number of retail insurance brokerage and agency firms,
as well as individual brokers and agents and direct writers of insurance
coverage. Specifically, this segment:
• addresses the highly specialized product development and risk management
needs of professional groups, insurance companies, service businesses,
governments, healthcare providers, commercial organizations and non-profit
groups, among others
• provides affinity products for professional liability, life, disability
income and personal lines for individuals, associations and businesses
• provides wholesale brokerage, managing underwriting and premium finance
services to independent agents and brokers as well as corporate clients
• offers claims management and loss cost management services to insurance
companies and firms with self-insurance programs
• provides actuarial, loss prevention and administrative services to
businesses and consumers.
We measure our revenues in this segment under the following areas:
Risk Management and Insurance Brokerage (Americas and International
operations) encompasses our retail and wholesale brokerage services,
affinity products, managing general underwriting, placement and captive
management services, and premium finance services for small, mid-sized and
large companies, including Fortune 500 corporations. The Americas'
operations provide products and services to clients in North and South
America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. Our International risk operations offer
similar products and services to the rest of the world. Risk management
services also include risk identification and assessment, safety
engineering, claims and loss cost management, and program administration.
Retail brokerage has practice areas to deliver specialized advice and
services in such segments as entertainment, media, financial institutions,
marine, aviation, construction, healthcare and energy, among others.
As a retail broker, Aon Risk Services generally serves as an advisor to
corporate clients and can arrange a wide spectrum of risk management
solutions, including property, general liability, professional and
directors' and officers' liability, workers' compensation, and other
exposures.
Wholesale brokerage operations serve retail insurance brokers and
independent agents in placing large and small accounts with both standard
and specialty carriers. Our wholesale brokerage operations are a commercial
resource for insurance products, specialty programs and exclusive
facilities.
In our managing general underwriting business, we provide outsourcing
solutions to insurance companies, such as risk selection, premium rating,
form design and client service, but we do not assume any underwriting risk.
Aon's wholesale brokers and managing general underwriting units offer more
than 450 insurance products and programs. Clients may access them directly,
or through the Aon Specialty Product Network (ASPN), which we developed as a
single-point-of-contact for agent and broker clients who need specialty
insurance solutions for their customers.
We are also a major provider in the management of captive insurance
companies that enable our clients to manage risks that would be cost
prohibitive or unavailable in traditional insurance markets.
Reinsurance Brokerage and Related Services offers sophisticated advisory
services in program design and claim recoveries that enhance the risk/return
characteristics of insurance policy portfolios, improve capital utilization
and evaluate and mitigate catastrophic loss exposures worldwide. An
insurance or reinsurance company may seek reinsurance or other risk-transfer
financing on all or a portion of the risks it insures. Brokerage services
use dynamic financial analysis and capital market alternatives, such as
transferring catastrophe risk through securitization.
Aon Re Worldwide, Inc., its subsidiaries and its affiliates provide
reinsurance services to insurance and reinsurance companies and other risk
assumption entities by acting as brokers or intermediaries on all classes of
reinsurance. While property and casualty lines dominate, our reinsurance
activities also include specialty lines such as professional liability,
medical malpractice, accident, life and health. Services include advice,
placement of reinsurance and alternative risk transfer financing with
capital markets, and related services such as actuarial, financial and
regulatory consulting, portfolio analysis, catastrophe modeling, and claims
services.
Claim Services offers claims administration and loss cost management
services through dedicated subsidiaries that are separate from our risk
management and reinsurance brokerage services. In the United States, these
services are delivered principally through Cambridge Integrated Services
Group.
Compensation for Services
Revenues are generated through commissions, fees from clients, and
compensation from insurance and reinsurance companies with whom we place
business for services provided to them. Commission rates and fees vary,
depending upon several factors which may include the amount of premium, the
type of insurance or reinsurance coverage provided, the particular services
provided to an insurer or reinsurer, and the capacity in which the broker
acts. We also receive investment income on funds held on behalf of clients.
(2)
Consulting
The Consulting segment generated approximately 12% of our total operating
segment revenues in 2003. It has approximately 7,500 employees worldwide
located in more than 120 offices. We believe we are the world's third
largest employee benefit consultant and the fifth largest in the United
States based on total revenues.
Through our Aon Consulting Worldwide, Inc. subsidiary, (Aon Consulting) we
provide a full range of human capital management services in five practice
areas:
1.
Employee Benefits advises clients regarding the structure, funding and
administration of employee benefit programs, which attract, retain and
motivate employees. Benefits consulting includes health and welfare,
retirement, executive benefits, absence management, compliance, employee
commitment, investment advisory and elective benefits services.
2.
Compensation focuses on designing salary, bonus, commission, stock option,
and other pay structures, with special expertise in the financial services
and technology industries.
3.
Management Consulting assists clients in process improvement and design;
leadership, organization and human capital development; and change
management.
4.
Communications advises clients on how to communicate initiatives that
support their corporate vision.
5.
Human Resource Outsourcing offers employment processing, performance
improvement, benefits administration, and other employment-related services.
Aon Consulting works to maximize the value of clients' human resources
spending, to boost employee productivity, and to improve employee
performance. Its approach addresses a trend toward more diverse workforces
(demographics, nationalities, cultures and work/lifestyle preferences) that
require more choices and flexibility among employers—with benefit options
suited to individual needs.
Our consulting professionals and their clients also identify options in
human resource outsourcing and process improvement. Prime areas where
companies choose to use outsourcing services include the assessment and
selection of job candidates, employment processing, training and
development, benefits administration and the individual benefits enrollment
process.
(3)
Insurance Underwriting
Our insurance underwriting segment, with approximately 9,000 employees
worldwide, has operations in the United States, Canada, Latin America,
Europe and Asia/Pacific. This segment generated approximately 30% of Aon's
total operating segment revenues in 2003. We classify our insurance
underwriting businesses into two sub-segments: (1) accident & health and
life, and (2) warranty, credit and property and casualty.
Accident & Health and Life
Our Combined Insurance Company of America and Combined Life Insurance
Company of New York (Combined) subsidiaries provide supplemental accident,
health and life insurance. We are a leading underwriter and distributor of
specialty individual accident, disability, health and life insurance
products that are targeted to middle income consumers in the United States,
Europe, Canada, Asia/Pacific and Latin America.
A worldwide sales force of approximately 7,600 exclusive career agents
service clients regularly to initiate and renew coverage and to sell
additional coverage. We offer a wide range of accident and sickness
insurance products, including short-term disability, cancer aid, Medicare
supplement, disability income, and long-term care coverage. Most of these
products are primarily fixed-indemnity obligations, and are not subject to
escalating medical cost inflation.
With the continuing rise of employee benefit costs, Combined also works with
employers to contain those costs while offering quality benefits that appeal
to their employees' individual needs. For example, a Worksite Solutions
program complements existing benefits packages offered by employers with no
additional cost to a company. Individual employees choose among supplemental
insurance product options and pay for them through payroll deductions.
Insurance Brokers in the Directory
Aon
Arthur J. Gallagher
Marsh & McLennan
Willis Group
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