James' role to be cut in Aon restructure

22/06/2009

Clive James, group managing director of Aon Global Insurance Managers (AGIM) is believed to be leaving his post ahead of structural changes in Aon’s captive management segment.

An industry source said his position at AGIM would effectively be discontinued as part of the restructuring process. James was unavailable for comment and an Aon spokesperson said the company was unable to comment on any individuals at AGIM.

However, Andrew Tunnicliffe, group managing director, Aon Global Risk Consulting (AGRC) said a decision had been taken to change global leadership of the captive management business to a more regional approach.

Tunnicliffe said Aon intends to align its captive management business better with its retail client network and to make it consistent with the risk consulting businesses by transferring leadership to regional hubs.

“All of those businesses, with the exception of AGIM, do have regional leadership in the three key hubs of Asia-Pacific, the Americas and EMEA,” said Tunnicliffe.

“What we’ve decided to do is to concentrate less on global leadership of that business and to have more regional leadership, to get closer to the clients’ related issues and domicile development.”

Tunnicliffe confirmed that the captive management segment would continue to report in to the AGRC board. “I will personally be taking responsibility for that global connection,” he said.

However, Tunnicliffe was unable to comment specifically on whether any roles within captive management would be discontinued. “It’s more of a re-allocation of responsibility. In every business process we’ll look at structures and efficiencies,” he said.

“We will be making some announcements in the near future about the re-allocation of those responsibilities but we’re not in a position to confirm that as of today.”

James came to the fore as head of Aon’s captive operations in 2006, when the Global Captive Services Group was renamed AGRC and the dedicated captive management unit, AGIM, was formed.

Given James’ extensive travel schedule between the various global captive management operations, one source estimated that the re-structuring of his position could save Aon up to £300,000 in what is proving a difficult period for the captive management sector.

Aon said it was unable to confirm any actual figures and denies that costs savings were the driving force behind the restructure. "Our focus is on the client value and efficiency generated through our restructure," said an Aon spokesperson.

“Captive management is probably more recession-proof than other areas, because you’ve got renewable income in the form of management fees,” added Tunnicliffe. “Saying that, like any other service provider we’ve constantly got to look at efficiency and innovation.”