LONDON, 24 September 2007 – Aon Consulting UK is piloting a ‘9 day fortnight’ (9/10) for employees to take more control over their work-life balance. Employees at the pensions, benefits and HR consulting firm will condense their normal working fortnight into nine days, allowing them to take off one day every two weeks.

The idea was generated by employees who were consulted on how they wanted to achieve a flexible working culture at Aon Consulting. 9/10 is now being tested as part of a wider set of initiatives to support staff and create an even better place to work, including flexible career paths, coaching and development for leadership and an environmentally friendly scheme in all offices.

Aon Consulting’s Leeds and Bristol offices will be piloting the 9/10 scheme for six months, after which consideration will be given to introducing this option across Aon Consulting’s 12 offices with over 1100 employees.

Gary Cowler, client relationship director at Aon Consulting in Leeds, said: "To achieve our business objectives we need the best people. 9/10 is the latest initiative we’re piloting to differentiate ourselves in the market place.  Employees are seeking rewards beyond the annual salary and bonus so we’re looking to help our people by offering an excellent work-life balance."

The initiative will not operate on a clocking in/out basis.  Employees will be responsible for their own timekeeping and are expected to work the committed hours to ensure high service standards are maintained.

Gary added: “We have bright and committed people who we trust to deliver valuable work and advice to our clients; we must also trust them to manage their time.  We’ll approach this as a team and discover if we can make the pilot succeed for all stakeholders; our clients, our business and our people.”

The pilot will gather valuable feedback from employees, as well as tracking progress against a set of measures, including:

• are we still delivering excellent service to our clients?
• are we still meeting our business goals?
• are we seeing an improvement in absence, recruitment and retention?

CASE STUDY – Marcus Hurd

Marcus Hurd is a senior consultant and actuary at Aon Consulting in Leeds, as well as a regular spokesperson on the finances of UK pension schemes.  He and his wife have two young children both under the age of two.

He comments: "Financial rewards alone are not always sufficient to achieve a desired lifestyle.  On those occasions, initiatives such as Aon's 9 day fortnight are priceless.  My role means that I am always 'on call', but spending an additional day at home with the children helps maintain a work-life balance when it matters the most."

Earlier in the year, Aon also allowed Marcus to take five weeks extended paternity leave following complications after the birth of his second child.

CASE STUDY – Gaynor West

Gaynor West, office manager at Aon Consulting in Leeds, looks after her stepchildren every other weekend, in addition to shopping for two elderly relatives.

She comments: "The extra day off makes life so much easier as I can now spend quality time with the kids rather than having to drag them round the supermarket at weekends. Work permitting, it’s fantastic as it means an extra day each fortnight to do the ironing or shopping for my mother in law.”

Gaynor will actually be enjoying two days holiday next week as she has been given an extra day off for her birthday, another Aon initiative to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary this year.

About Aon

Aon Corporation (NYSE: AOC), ranked by A.M. Best as the number one global insurance brokerage based on brokerage revenues and voted best insurance intermediary, best reinsurance intermediary and best employee benefits consulting firm by the readers of Business Insurance, is a leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting. There are 43,000 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, potential regulatory or legislative changes that would affect our ability to sell, and be reimbursed at current levels for, our Sterling subsidiary’s Medicare health product, 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, ERISA class actions, the impact of the analysis of practices relating to stock options, 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.

Aon Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in respect of insurance mediation activities only.