Marsh & Aon Recover & Remember

Marsh & Aon Recover & Remember

Looking back one year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York Citys World Trade Center, there is no dampening of the pain over the loss of nearly 500 colleagues killed in the offices of the worlds largest insurance brokers, Marsh and Aon.

New York-based Marsh saw 295 of its workers perish in the attack. Aon, headquartered in Chicago, lost 175 people.

Both companies Web sites still host memorials to the victims and message boards for employees to share their thoughts and pain with one another. Aons site carries an online memorial for each individual lost in the attack.

As a business, the attack meant locating backup material and distributing accounts to others while dealing with the horror of the loss of so many co-workers and friends. In conducting interviews for this piece, while representatives with both firms said the brokerages managed to put the pieces of their business back together quickly, there was a sense of difficulty in dealing with the loss of colleagues whose positions were filled with replacements but who will forever leave an irreplaceable void.

Barbara Perlmutter, senior vice president of public affairs for parent company Marsh & McLennan Companies, said that in terms of business, Marsh recovered quickly from the attack. Using its international structure, the firm pulled together the data lost in the World Trade Center attack and backed-up elsewhere. The task, she said, was completed a few days after the attack.

In terms of the work, accounts were shifted to others, and eventually replacements were hired for the vacant positions “to meet clients' needs,” Ms. Perlmutter said.

At Aon, the process was much the same. Stephen P. Ban, senior vice president, director of marketing and communication, pointed out that shortly after the attack on the WTC, Patrick G. Ryan, chairman and chief executive officer, issued a statement on the recovery of data.

Aon was able to gather critical information in a short period of time, and obtained hard copies of documents not yet scanned from clients and underwriters for the files. Not recoverable were recent intra-office e-mail and documents not electronically imaged in the WTC.

“Our IT team and a variety of other teams around the company and around the world worked tirelessly to make sure that our systems and business were up and running very, very quickly after this terrible tragedy,” Mr. Ban said, paraphrasing Mr. Ryans statement.

Aon took “the appropriate steps” to replace positions, either through hiring or promotion, to ensure that client service remained intact, he added.

If there is anything to be learned from Sept. 11 from a risk management standpoint, said Mr. Ban, the lesson is to have a disaster recovery plan in place. “You cant foresee every kind of event that will happen, but it is critical to know where to go, and who is on the crisis team,” he said. “The key decision is how to communicate with your employees and clients, and how to go forward to get this working as efficiently as possible.”

In terms of replacing offices, both companies have found temporary space for displaced employees, and continue to work to find permanent space. Marsh is building a facility across the Hudson River from New York in Hoboken, N.J. Ms. Perlmutter said the building is expected to be opened by June of next year.

Aon set up temporary offices on Third Avenue in Manhattan, and it has been widely reported that the firm is working to finalize an arrangement at Park Avenue Plaza and 199 Water St. Mr. Ban said he could not comment on or confirm those reports. However, he did say that Aon is committed to having a downtown presence.

From the beginning, Marsh and Aon reached out to the families of those in the attack by providing financial and emotional support. Counseling centers were set up, and funds to help families with future expenses were established.

Aon set up the Aon Memorial Education Fund and provided $10 million for the educational needs of the children of those lost on Sept. 11. The fund has received in excess of $2 million in donations from employees, partners, friends and carriers. “We are gratified by the number of people who tried to help out,” Mr. Ban said.

MMC established the MMC Victims Relief Fund, with an initial contribution from the firm of $10 million. The fund has received $4 million in donations. An additional $10 million was contributed to the cost of extending health benefits after a controversy where family members criticized MMC for not providing for the benefits.

On Sept. 11, one year after the attack, “we will mark the anniversary and be open for business, but it will not be business as usual,” explained Ms. Perlmutter.

Marsh plans to be flexible in meeting the individual desires of its employees who may wish to attend services or spend the day reflecting upon the loss. There are plans to unveil a permanent memorial to the victims of the attack that will be placed near the firms headquarters at the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. “It will be just a day to spend a lot of time in reflection and discussion with our employees,” Ms. Perlmutter added.

Aon said that on Sept. 11, the New York City office would be closed. No additional commemoration plans were announced for the rest of the firm, but a representative said that it would likely be a very solemn day.

“The thing that all of us at Aon were struck by was the response from people from all over the world who stepped up and helped out,” Mr. Ban reflected. “There was an overwhelming response, and I think Pat Ryan would say how proud and grateful we are to all those who stepped up to the business crisis and the human crisis at the same time.”

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, September 9, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.