LONDON, 11 October 2005 – Pension schemes face increasingly stringent governance requirements.  In response to this, Aon Consulting, a leading pensions, benefits and HR consulting firm, today announced a new governance product to help companies and trustees tackle the complexity of complying with governance best practice. The Aon approach focuses on five key areas - the ‘Five Pillars of Governance’:

• Business planning and strategy – enabling pension schemes to comply with Myners’ call for better forward planning
• Investment and financial – helping schemes to ensure that the advice they receive from external advisers is appropriate and relevant
• Operational – auditing, and where necessary overhauling, operational processes to ensure they are fit for purpose and meet the trustees’ objectives
• Trustee knowledge and understanding – providing comprehensive trustee training to ensure trustees can meet the requirements of their role
• Measurement and benchmarking – monitoring progress towards scheme objectives and benchmarking governance performance.
• These five key pillars – underpinned by robust audit and risk management processes – are all areas in which Aon has many years’ experience.

Commenting on the launch, Richard Minskip, Head of Benefits Management Consulting at Aon, said: “Governance requirements are not something pension schemes can afford to ignore.  Legislative and regulatory pressure to implement a governance framework will only increase in coming months and years – schemes need to take action now.

“Schemes without proven governance processes leave themselves open to many risks, including litigation, whether arising from members or otherwise.  In addition, a poorly-managed scheme without a governance framework may well not retain the continued support of its sponsor.

“Aon Consulting’s new Governance offering is simple yet comprehensive, based on proven processes and accepted best practice, and can address all governance requirements, from initial audit, through advice on improving performance, to trustee insurance.”

Notes to Editors

For more information on Aon Consulting’s governance solutions, please call 0800 279 5588 or email enquiries@aonconsulting.co.uk.

About Aon Consulting

Aon Consulting is a leading human capital consultancy, helping organisations of every size to attract and keep the employees they need. We advise on all aspects of employment, including health-related insurance and risk; employee compensation and pensions; human resource strategy planning; job design and change management; and staff assessment and legal issues. Aon Consulting is a division of Aon, one of the UK’s largest insurance broker and provider of risk management services and a major force in reinsurance and the UK human capital consulting market.  Aon Consulting Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.


About Aon

Aon Corporation ( http://www.aon.com ) is a leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting. There are 47,000 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, 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.