LONDON, 20 July 2006 – As UK hauliers come under pressure from plummeting freight rates on the continent and seek to remain competitive, a new insurance solution has been created to ease their burden of costly liability premiums.

Aon Marine, a business unit of leading insurance and risk management consultant Aon Limited, has created a one stop shop product which enables hauliers to insure their employer, public and customers’ freight liability under one policy. Traditionally, hauliers have taken out three separate policies to achieve this level of cover so this package aims to reduce the time, effort and money spent on managing these insurances.

The product is aimed at small to medium sized road haulage and courier firms with a turnover of around £1-2 million and offers:

• public liability cover of up to £2 million
• employers’ liability insurance of £10 million
• freight liability a minimum of £250,000 but bespoke according to requirements.

Gill Bewes, UK Development Executive in Aon Marine’s specialist Transport and Logistics team, said: “As we all know, hauliers are already trading on incredibly tight margins and now that European counterparts are slashing their rates, UK companies are being forced to follow suit. Buying your liability insurances ‘in bulk’ to strike up a more competitive deal is just one way hauliers can help to minimise the damage to their bottom line.”

Ms Bewes continued: "In addition to the cost benefits, companies in the industry told us that they were tired of having three separate premiums and renewal dates. A haulage firm’s job is to safely transport freight from A to B and they have limited time to spend on insurance. This is where we, as specialist brokers, step in to ensure hauliers have adequate insurance to cover their liabilities – and at a competitive price."

Aon Marine has partnered with Royal & SunAlliance, a leading UK insurer, to create a freight liability solution that ensures hauliers have a simple and competitive renewal. 

Notes to editor:

About Aon

Aon Corporation is a leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting. There are 46,000 employees working in Aon's 500 offices in more than 120 countries. Backed by broad resources, industry knowledge and technical expertise, Aon professionals help a wide range of clients develop effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions.

This press release contains certain statements related to future results, or states our intentions, beliefs and expectations or predictions for the future which are forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from either historical or anticipated results depending on a variety of factors. Potential factors that could impact results include: general economic conditions in different countries in which we do business around the world, changes in global equity and fixed income markets that could affect the return on invested assets, fluctuations in exchange and interest rates that could influence revenue and expense, rating agency actions that could affect our ability to borrow funds, funding of our various pension plans, changes in the competitive environment, our ability to implement restructuring initiatives and other initiatives intended to yield cost savings, our ability to execute the stock repurchase program, changes in commercial property and casualty markets and commercial premium rates that could impact revenues, changes in revenues and earnings due to the elimination of contingent commissions, other uncertainties surrounding a new compensation model, the impact of investigations brought by state attorneys general, state insurance regulators, federal prosecutors, and federal regulators, the impact of class actions and individual lawsuits including client class actions, securities class actions, derivative actions, and ERISA class actions, the cost of resolution of other contingent liabilities and loss contingencies, and the difference in ultimate paid claims in our underwriting companies from actuarial estimates. Further information concerning the Company and its business, including factors that potentially could materially affect the Company’s financial results, is contained in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.