London Calling: Aon Plans to Move
Headquarters, Moody’s Gives OK
BY MARK E. RUQUET
Aon says it plans to move its corpo- rate headquarters to London to be closer to the Lloyd’s market, but the
move will not result in the loss of any jobs
in the Chicago area.
the broker says the move “provides
greater access to emerging markets and
takes better advantage of the strategic
proximity to Lloyd’s and the London
market as one of the key international
hubs of insurance and risk brokerage.”
the move, which is subject to shareholder
approval, is expected to be completed during
the second quarter of this year.
Survey Reveals Agents Desire More
Carriers With Real-Time Capabilities
BY STAFF WRITER
InDEpEnDEnt agEnts and brokers place the highest priority on getting moreinsurancecarrierstoofferreal-time
interface functionality to ease workflow is-
sues in their agencies, according to a recent
Real time/Download Campaign survey.
More than 3,100 survey participants
from every state were asked to prioritize
11 possible enhancements to real-time
programs and tools, using a five-point scale.
the survey then asked agents to choose
their top-three priority items, drawing
from the list they had just identified with a
“ 5” (most important).
sixty percent of the respondents
gave “additional carriers with real-time
capabilities” a 5. nearly half (45 percent) put
“broader carrier participation” in their top-
three priorities as well. about one-third also
placed having “consistent lines of business/
real-time functions offered across carriers” in
their top-three priorities.
according to the survey, agents want to
use real-time even more, but the failure of
some carriers to offer the functionality leads
to multiple workflows, which makes them
less competitive, according to Cal Durland,
director of member relations at aCoRD, a
Real time/Download Campaign sponsor.
“to take it to the next level, agents say
they want more of their preferred carriers to
work with them in real time and to offer the
full range of real-time transactions across
the major lines of business. it’s becoming a
differentiator when agents choose where to
place business,” says Durland.
A&B PRIORITIES
Other suggested improvements and the
percentage of survey participants who rated
each one’s priority as a “ 5” include:
J Easier password management, 41%
J Commercial-lines real-time comparative
rating, 41%
J Reduction of real-time quote requests
that error out, 44%
the second-highest priority agents and
brokers identified in the survey was “faster
response time,” cited as a 5 by 52 percent
of respondents and placed in the top-three
priorities by 44 percent of agents surveyed.
“When carriers and vendors implement
‘best-practice’ real-time workflows, agents
can serve their clients faster,” says Jeff
yates, executive director of independent
insurance agents & Brokers of america’s
agents Council for technology, another
campaign sponsor.
to help insurance companies and
vendors better understand how to
implement real-time and the best-practice
real-time workflows that agents seek,
the campaign brought together industry
volunteers to identify and document
current carrier best practices, as well as how
agents would like to see real-time evolve in
the future.
“agents and brokers who served on
the agency Real-time Experience Work
group looked at what is working on the
front lines,” said work-group chair Cyndy
smith, vice president at Haylor, Freyer,
Coon and past co-chair of the campaign.
“then we worked with carriers and
vendors to create a report that shows how
these successful practices could be more
broadly implemented.”
