Aon Profile
Aon plc (Aon) operates as a professional services company worldwide.
The company is providing a broad range of risk and human capital solutions. Through its experience, global reach, and comprehensive analytics, the company helps clients meet rapidly changing, increasingly complex, and interconnected challenges related to risk and people. The company is committed to accelerating innovation to address unmet and evolving client needs so that its clients are better informed, better advised, and able to make better decisions to protect and grow their business.
The company’s clients are in over 120 countries and sovereignties and include all market segments and almost every industry. This diversification of the company’s customer base helps provide it stability in different economic scenarios that could affect specific industries, customer segments, or geographies.
Business Segment
The company operates as one segment that includes all of its continuing operations, which, as a global professional services firm, provides a broad range of risk and human capital solutions through four solution lines — Commercial risk, Reinsurance, Health, and Wealth, which make up its principal products and services. The CODM assesses the performance of the company and allocates resources based on one segment: Aon United.
Principal Products and Services
Commercial Risk Solutions includes retail brokerage, specialty solutions, global risk consulting and captives management, and Affinity programs. In retail brokerage, the company’s dedicated teams of risk professionals utilize comprehensive analytics capabilities and insights providing clients with risk advice for their organizations. The company utilizes Aon’s differentiated capabilities in industry sector- and segment-specific approaches, like Digital Client Solutions, to risk transfer options and delivers them through a variety of channels, including bespoke solutions for complex needs, structured solutions for mid-market and small and medium-sized enterprises, and digital distribution, including CoverWallet. The company’s specialty-focused organizational structure includes financial and professional lines, cyber, surety and trade credit, crisis management, transaction liability, climate, and intellectual property. The company develops market leading insights on the most efficient risk transfer vehicles for clients in today’s complex and integrated risk environment to enable clients to make better decisions. Global risk consulting and captive management is a global leader in supporting better management of companies’ risk profiles by identifying and quantifying the risks they face, mapping out optimal risk mitigation, retention and transfer solutions and thus enabling them to be more informed to make better decisions for their businesses. Affinity programs include development, marketing, and administration of customized and targeted insurance programs, facilities, and other structured solutions, including Aon Client Treaty. The company collaborates with sponsors and other privileged distribution channels through which Aon can deliver differentiated, highly targeted, and highly valuable solutions for unique risk solutions.
Reinsurance Solutions includes treaty reinsurance, facultative reinsurance, Strategy and Technology Group and capital markets. Treaty reinsurance addresses underwriting and capital objectives on a portfolio level, allowing the company’s clients to more effectively manage the combination of premium growth, return on capital, and rating agency interests on an integrated basis. Facultative reinsurance empowers clients to better understand, manage, and transfer risk through innovative facultative solutions and provides the most efficient access to the global facultative reinsurance markets. Strategy and Technology Group combines strategic advice with data-driven consulting, analytics, and modeling tools, including Tyche, ReMetrica, and PathWise, to help clients deploy capital efficiently and effectively. The company develops highly customized solutions that help clients drive growth and operational efficiency, improve balance sheet strength and resiliency, and comply with regulatory and operational requirements, including through the execution of reinsurance transactions. Capital markets is a global investment bank with expertise in insurance-linked securities, capital raising, strategic advice, restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions. The company partners with insurers, reinsurers, investment firms, and corporations in executing innovative risk management products, capital market solutions and corporate finance advisory services.
Health Solutions includes consulting and brokerage, consumer benefits solutions, and talent. Consulting and brokerage develops and implements innovative, customized health and benefits strategies for clients of all sizes across industries and geographies to manage risk, drive engagement, and strengthen the workforce through improved health and wellbeing. The company partners with insurers and other strategic partners to develop and implement new and innovative solutions and leverage world-class analytics and technology to help clients make informed decisions and manage healthcare outcomes. Consulting and brokerage also advises multinational companies on global benefits, including insurance placement across more than 120 countries and sovereignties, program design and management, financing optimization, and enhanced employee experience, as well as assists in navigating global regulatory and compliance requirements in countries in which they operate. Consumer benefits solutions designs and delivers innovative voluntary consumer benefits that improve an employer’s total rewards strategy and positively impacts their employees’ financial and overall wellbeing. The company leverages its proprietary digital platform to provide efficient enrollment strategies through an effective combination of data, analytics, and tailored products. Multi-channel and targeted communications solutions increase consumer benefit knowledge and enhance engagement. The company’s talent team delivers data, analytics, and advice to business leaders so they can make better workforce decisions and align their business and people strategies. The company supports clients across the full employee lifecycle, including talent assessment and selection, compensation benchmarking, total rewards strategy optimization, workforce analytics and benchmarking, workforce resilience planning, talent integration in transaction situations, Corporate Governance, ESG consulting, and strategic employee communication.
Wealth Solutions includes retirement consulting, pension administration, and investments consulting. Retirement consulting specializes in providing clients across the globe with strategic design consulting on their retirement programs, actuarial services, and risk management, including pension de-risking, governance, integrated pension administration and legal and compliance consulting. The company also helps organizations manage their balance sheet volatility. Retirement consulting and pension administration leverage Aon’s pension expertise to deliver high-quality integrated retirement services. Our customized services include outsourcing, co-sourcing and in-sourcing options. The company’s partnership-driven model is powered by deep pension experience and enabled with smart technology. The company’s investments consulting team provides public and private companies and other institutions with advice on developing and maintaining investment programs across a broad range of plan types, including defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans, endowments and foundations. The company’s delegated investment solutions offer ongoing management of investment programs and fiduciary responsibilities either in a partial or full discretionary model for multiple asset owners. The company partners with clients to deliver its scale and experience to help them effectively manage their investments, risk, and governance and potentially lower costs.
Revenue and Compensation
The company’s business generates revenues primarily through commissions, compensation from insurance and reinsurance companies for services it provides to them, and fees from customers. Commissions and fees for brokerage services 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 a client, insurer, or reinsurer, and the capacity in which the company acts. Compensation from insurance and reinsurance companies includes: fees for consulting and analytics services, and fees and commissions for administrative and other services provided to or on behalf of insurers and reinsurers. Fees from clients for advice and consulting services are dependent on the extent and value of the services it provides.
Funds Held on Behalf of Clients
The company typically holds funds on behalf of clients, including premiums received from clients and claims due to clients that are in transit to and from insurers. Certain funds held on behalf of clients are invested in interest-bearing premium trust accounts and can fluctuate significantly depending on when the company collects and remits cash.
Clientele
The company’s clients operate in many businesses and industries throughout the world.
Competition
The company competes with numerous other global insurance brokers and consulting companies, including, among others, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., Willis Towers Watson Public Limited Company, Arthur J Gallagher & Company, Lockton Companies, Inc., as well as numerous other global, regional, and local firms in almost every area of its business.
Seasonality
Due to buying patterns and delivery of certain products and services in the markets the company serves, revenues recognized tend to be higher in the first and fourth quarters of each fiscal year (year ended December 31, 2023).
Regulation
The company’s subsidiaries must comply with laws and regulations of the jurisdictions in which they do business. These laws and regulations are enforced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom (U.K.), by federal and state agencies in the United States (U.S.), and by various regulatory agencies and other supervisory authorities in other countries through the granting and revoking of licenses to do business, the licensing of agents, the monitoring of trade practices, policy form approval, limits on commission rates, and mandatory remuneration disclosure requirements.
In the U.S., the company uses Aon Securities LLC, an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of the company, and a U.S.-registered broker-dealer and investment advisor, member of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Securities Investor Protection Corporation, for investment banking, capital advisory services and other broker-dealer activities.
Further, pension and financial laws and regulations, including oversight and supervision by the FCA in the U.K., the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the DOL in the U.S., and regulators in other countries govern certain of the retirement-related consulting services provided by Aon and its subsidiaries and affiliates. This includes Aon subsidiaries that provide investment advisory services regulated by various U.S. federal authorities including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Labor (DOL), and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), as well as authorities on the state level.
History
Aon plc was founded in 1919. The company was incorporated in 1979.
