Full Description

Willis Group Holdings Limited, incorporated on February 8, 2001, is a global insurance broker. The Company is the ultimate holding company for the Willis Group. It provides a range of insurance brokerage, reinsurance and risk management consulting services to its worldwide clients, both directly and indirectly through its associates. The Company provides both specialized risk management advisory and consulting services on a global basis to clients worldwide in specific industrial and commercial activities, and services to small, medium and major corporates through its retail operations. Its core businesses include aerospace, energy, marine, construction, financial and executive risks, fine art, jewelry and specie, special contingency risks, and reinsurance.

As an advisor and insurance broker, Willis Group Holdings acts as an intermediary between the clients and insurance carriers by advising clients on risk management requirements, helping clients determine the means of managing risk, and negotiating and placing insurance risk with insurance carriers through its global distribution network. The Company organizes its business into three segments: North America and International, which together comprise its principal retail operations, and Global. On January 2, 2008, it acquired an additional 4% of interest in Gras Savoye. In October 2008, Willis Group Holdings Limited acquired Hilb Rogal & Hobbs Company.

The Company offers a range of services to help its clients identify and control their risks. These services range from strategic risk consulting, including providing actuarial analyses, to a range of due diligence services to the provision of practical on-site risk control services, such as health and safety or property loss control consulting. The Company also assists clients in planning how to manage incidents or crises when they occur. These services include contingency planning, security audits and product tampering plans. The Company is not an insurance company and therefore it does not underwrite insurance risks for its own account. The Company, along with its associates, serves a diverse base of clients located in approximately 190 countries. These clients include multinational and middle-market companies in a range of industries, as well as public institutions and individual clients.

Global

The Company’s Global business provides specialist brokerage and consulting services to clients worldwide for the risks arising from specific industrial and commercial activities. In these operations, it handles various lines of coverage, including complex insurance programs, and acting as an intermediary between retail brokers and insurers. The Company’s Global business serves clients primarily from United Kingdom offices, although it also serves clients from offices in the United States, Continental Europe and Asia. The Global business is divided into Global Specialties and Willis Re. The Global business is divided into Global Specialties, Willis Re and Faber & Dumas.

Global Specialties operates in businesses, such as aerospace, marine, energy, construction, financial and executive risks. In aerospace, Willis Group Holdings provides insurance and reinsurance brokerage and risk management services to aerospace clients, including aircraft manufacturers, air cargo handlers and shippers, airport managers and other general aviation companies. Advisory services provided by aerospace include claims recovery, contract and leasing risk management, safety services and market information. Aerospace is also prominent in supplying the space industry through providing insurance and risk management services to over 40 companies. The energy practice provides insurance brokerage services, including property damage, liability, control of well and pollution insurance to the energy industry.

Willis Group Holdings’ marine unit provides marine insurance and reinsurance brokerage services, including hull, cargo and general marine liabilities. Marine’s clients include direct buyers, other insurance intermediaries and insurance companies. The construction practice provides risk management advice and brokerage services for a range of United Kingdom and international construction activities. The clients of the construction practice include contractors, project owners, project managers, project financiers, professional consultants and insurers. The financial and executive risks unit specializes in broking directors’ and officers’ insurance, as well as professional indemnity insurance for corporations and professional firms.

The Company offers a range of transactional capabilities, including risk transfer via the capital markets, as well as analytical and advisory services, including enterprise risk management, hazard modeling, financial and balance sheet analysis and reinsurance optimization studies. Faber & Dumas is t he Company’s wholesale brokerage division and comprises Glencairn, Fine Art, Jewelry and Specie, Special Contingency Risk and Hughes-Gibb units. Glencairn provides property, energy, casualty and personal accident insurance to independent wholesaler brokers worldwide who wish to access the London, European and Bermudan markets. The Fine Art, Jewelry and Specie unit provides specialist risk management and insurance services to fine art, diamond and jewelry businesses and operators of armored cars. Coverage is also obtained for vault and bullion risks.

The Special Contingency Risks unit specializes in producing packages to protect corporations, groups and individuals against special contingencies, such as kidnap and ransom, extortion, detention and political repatriation. The Hughes-Gibb unit principally services the insurance and reinsurance needs of the horse racing and horse breeding industry.

North America

The Company’s North America business provides risk management, insurance brokerage, employee benefits and related risk management services to a variety of clients in the United States and Canada. In addition to being organized geographically and by specialty, the North America business focuses on four client segments: global, large national/middle-market, small commercial, and private client, with service, marketing and sales platform support for each segment. Further, the Company’s North America Marketing Practice provides clients with access to worldwide insurance capital.

The construction division specializes in providing risk management, insurance and surety bonding services to the construction industry. Other industry practice groups include healthcare, serving the professional liability, and other insurance and risk management needs of private and not-for-profit health systems, hospitals and physicians groups; financial institutions, serving the needs of large banks, insurers and other financial services firms; mergers and acquisitions, providing due diligence, and risk management and insurance brokerage services to private equity and merchant banking firms and their portfolio companies. Willis Employee Benefits, fully integrated into the North America platform, is the Company’s largest product-based practice group and provides health, welfare and human resources consulting and brokerage services to all of its commercial client segments.

Willis Executive Risks is a national team of technical professionals who specialize in meeting the directors and officers, employment practices, and fiduciary liability insurance risk management, and claims advocacy needs of public and private corporations and organizations. This practice group also has expertise in professional liability, especially Internet risks. The Excess and Surplus segment, based in Redondo Beach, California, with offices operating in California, Texas, Florida and Illinois, is a wholesale broker providing access to excess and surplus lines markets for the domestic network of retail brokers.

The Captive, Actuarial and Pooling Solutions (CAPS) has a national team of actuaries, certified public accountants, financial analysts and pooled insurance program experts who help large clients develop, implement and manage alternative risks financing vehicles. Willis HRH Programs operates in Florida, Michigan, Utah, Colorado, Connecticut and Vermont, and is a managing general agent/managing general underwriter. It provides national insurance programs to industries, including ski resorts, auto dealers, recycling, environmental and specialty workers' compensation.

International

The International unit consists of the Company’s retail operations in Eastern and Western Europe, United Kingdom and Ireland, Asia/Pacific, Russia, the Middle East, South Africa and Latin America, with a presence in over 100 countries worldwide. The services provided are focused according to the characteristics of each market, and generally include direct risk management and insurance brokerage, specialist and reinsurance brokerage and employee benefits consulting.

The Company competes with Marsh & McLennan and Aon.