By James Thaler

June 23 - (The Insurer) - Andy Marcell said Aon’s Risk Analyzer tools are raising risk awareness among clients and driving them to seek more limit, as he also detailed the “pattern recognition” and “connectivity” the intermediary aims to drive in his new role as Global Solutions CEO.

Marcell previously served as Aon’s chief executive for reinsurance solutions, before being promoted to Risk Capital CEO in 2023 and taking on his current position earlier this month.

The executive said the latest expansion of his responsibilities reflects a further deepening in Aon’s strategy to drive connectivity across business units, as has been done with the Risk Capital framework between insurance and reinsurance, only now executing it more widely.

Marcell’s newest role is geared towards driving engagement between risk capital and human capital.

“What's been astonishing to me was how wealth and health and talent were already working together across the large, complex clients and down into the middle market and solving the workforce issues of the customers,” Marcell said at Aon’s investor day earlier this month.

“And then in this new role, my job is to oversee that in the same way that I do with risk capital, but also bring that together in a way that resonates with the colleagues and with our clients,” he explained.

Marcell called driving connectivity between Aon’s risk capital and human capital strategies “fairly obvious”.

“The pattern recognition and what we're trying to do together is fantastic,” Marcell said, adding that a key message during the investor day is that Aon is “well positioned for growth” across all of its solution lines.

Marcell cited growing demand within human capital for private health insurance amid soaring costs as one area for growth

“We see that as a key driver of growth, and I think we were strong in articulating that opportunity, for us and for our clients. And then on the risk capital side, we're leaning into, what we call the 'mega trends', particularly those around natural perils and energy transition.”

Areas marked for investment within Risk Capital include construction and the natural resources segment as momentum behind fostering an energy transition accelerates. Marcell pointed to solar farms and battery factories being built as examples of the energy transition while in the U.S. there is a retrenchment into carbon energy production.

“So that is opportunity for us, and we're going to lean into that. And then in the US, in particular (the) U.S. middle market, where, post- the NFP acquisition, we still see our market share there, affording us an opportunity to grow both organically and inorganically,” Marcell said.

BETTER VISUALISATIONS OF RISK

Within Risk Capital, Marcell also touted the advantages of Aon’s Risk Analyzer tools, which he said have allowed its retail brokers to take reinsurance-driven analytics and articulate to client the full scope of their exposures “in a more meaningful way”.

He highlighted Impact Forecasting's proprietary tools for severe convective storm, wildfire and flood.

“When you use an RMS model or an AIR model, you're restricted in how far down you can go, in terms of deconstructing the IP and turning it into something usable for an original client,” he said.

“We have total flexibility in our ability to do that, by having our own models. Which is why we invested in Impact Forecasting in the first place, to help insurance companies get to risk level decision making,” Marcell added.

The executive said Aon can now bring the same level of risk insight to commercial clients that it could to its reinsurance buying insurer clients.

“Clients are buying more limit, and the example that sticks with me the most… is in the southern and central parts of the US, with our severe convective storm model and how frequency and severity has changed and shifted in location,” Marcell said.

“And so a new set of clients had a different set of exposures than they thought they would have had, and that wasn't explained to them or demonstrated to them, until we put it in the hands of our account executives, and they went and then visualised that to a whole number of clients.”

With the greater insights being delivered by the risk analyzer tools, clients now have better visibility into their “potential risk of ruin” and risks that couldn’t previously been visualized, according to Marcell, who added that clients generally “don't want to retain that risk”.