Aon Launches Insurance Consulting Company

Aon Corp. has launched a new company, Inpoint, to advise insurers on how to improve their performance.

The new consulting company will harness Aon's proprietary data to provide advisory and real-time information services to property/casualty insurance companies. The new business also adds a new revenue stream to Aon that is not related to the sale of insurance.

"No other brokerage firm is doing this," said Cynthia Beveridge, one of five managing partners of Inpoint and a former executive vice president of Aon. "It is hopefully game-changing for our industry, not just for the clients we are working for."

Inpoint will advise insurers on market segmentation and growth strategy; sales force effectiveness; pricing and underwriting; claims operations; and cost and operational excellence.

The company is likely to compete with major insurance consulting firms, such as McKinsey & Co., Accenture and Deloitte. Before joining Aon, Greg Case, president and chief executive officer of Aon, was the head of McKinsey's global insurance and financial services practice.

Inpoint will focus on property/casualty companies, Beveridge said. "What makes us different is that we are created from the insurance industry for the insurance industry," she said.

The company began offering its services 20 months ago, and has been well-received in the marketplace, she said.

"Some of our early clients looked at us like we had insight into data that was intriguing, while others felt that perhaps we were too close to Aon and perhaps biased," Beveridge said. "It's taken them a little bit of time to realize that our work really stands on its own. We have a lot of repeat and happy customers."

Inpoint is led by a team of insurance industry executives and experts. In addition to Beveridge, the team includes: Michael R. Moran, former E.V.P. and global head of brokering excellence for Aon Risk Services; Paul Galvin, leader of the Aon Carrier Strategic Consulting team based in London; Jesper Groenvold, CEO of Paragon Solutions; and Steven Kauderer, an insurance industry consultant who was recently recruited to help build the business.

As an integrated unit of Aon, Inpoint uses data and tools from multiple proprietary Aon sources, including Aon Global Risk Insight Platform, Paragon Solutions, Aon Analytics, Aon eSolutions, Aon Benfield, and Aon Global Risk Consulting.

The company serves clients from offices in Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, Dallas, Pittsburgh, London, Dublin and Sydney with access to resources from Aon's global network of more than 500 offices in 120 countries.

Aon is the largest global insurance broker, according to Best's Review's top global brokers ranking for 2008.