Aon Benfield, the world’s premier reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor, today celebrates its one year anniversary.
The company, which was born from the merger of Aon Re Global and Benfield Group in November 2008, has enjoyed a highly successful first year of trading despite challenging conditions in the global economy.
Through its commitment to providing industry-leading solutions and services, Aon Benfield has generated more than $100 million in new business, and has secured 14 industry awards in the past 12 months. More than 95 percent of the 160 key leadership colleagues announced at the time of the merger have remained with the firm.
Andrew Appel, Chief Executive Officer of Aon Benfield, said: “Our first year operating as a combined entity has surpassed all our expectations. We knew there would be a lot of synergies in the merger process, and that has certainly proved to be the case – we are now the only truly global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor in our space, with access to all the global markets, both traditional and alternative. We are redefining the value proposition of the reinsurance intermediary, and our unmatched solutions and services are helping our clients to redefine their businesses, to enable them to react to growth opportunities as we emerge from this difficult period in the global economy.”
In 2009, Aon Benfield developed more than 20 new tools and solutions for its clients, which have either been brought to market or are awaiting launch. The products included:
- Blue Fin II – An innovative and unique catastrophe bond that addressed the structural challenges highlighted by the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Blue Fin II was oversubscribed ahead of its launch, and helped to restore investor confidence in the sector, kick-starting the catastrophe bond market in 2009.
- Fac Pool Re – Another world-first solution that transfers Aon Benfield clients’ facultative risks into the capital markets.
- CapTivate – A reinsurance product tailored specifically to captives, which has been developed by Aon Benfield’s Structured Reinsurance team.
- S2MetricaSM – Based on the architecture of Aon Benfield’s award-winning dynamic financial analysis product, ReMetrica®, S2Metrica assists re/insurers to prepare and adapt their business models for the forthcoming European Union Solvency II regime.
Michael O’Halleran, Executive Chairman of Aon Benfield, said: “The first phase of Aon Benfield was the Coming Together of two leading players in our industry, and the second phase is our Redefining the role of the reinsurance intermediary. The innovative solutions we have developed since launch are now changing the way our clients conduct their business. While celebrating our first year of achievements, we continue to be our clients’ greatest advocate in the reinsurance and capital markets space. To maintain our leading position, we need to continually innovate and deliver solutions with the highest levels of client service. Thanks go to our 4,000 global colleagues whose hard work and dedication allows us to achieve our goals.”
