Marcell highlights construction and natural resources as Aon's commercial risk growth drivers

By Scott Vincent

June 9 - (The Insurer) - Aon CEO of global solutions Andy Marcell highlighted construction and natural resources as targeted growth areas within the group's commercial risk solutions business as he addressed the broker's investor day on Monday.

Marcell, whose role as CEO of risk capital was expanded to also include human capital at the start of this month, said demand in commercial risk continues to grow with the broker investing in its selected "high-growth verticals."

"Construction is everywhere, and it's global," he told investors. "And natural resources, wind farms, solar battery factories... we are leaning in and investing there. We are attracting talent to our firm. We are doubling down in our analytical capability in these categories where we will drive growth."

He highlighted the 5% 10-year average organic growth reported by the group's commercial risk solutions business, which now generates $7.9 billion in annual revenue.

Within its capital solutions business, Marcell said Aon was working to continue to facilitise its business, with its flagship Aon Client Treaty facility now a decade old.

"What we're trying to do with other facilities like that is to create as much automatic capacity to serve our clients as we can in the most efficient way, drawing in capital," he said.

He also highlighted growth in the group's parametric business, which he said had placed approximately $3 billion in limit over the past 12 months. Marcell also flagged growth opportunities in the U.S. middle market space following last year's acquisition of NFP.

"Post the acquisition of NFP, we continue to grow there organically and inorganically. Given our market share, we see tremendous opportunity for expansion," he said.

Overall, Marcell said the broker's commercial risk solutions business was "exceptionally well positioned to continue drive mid-single-digit growth or greater".

Within reinsurance solutions, Marcell said Aon was also seeing strong demand, which he attributed to climate change and the social inflation impact on casualty exposures in the U.S.

"We will continue to drive mid-single-digit growth or greater in reinsurance," he said. "In terms of our growth priorities, we're going to double down on our treaty capabilities, particularly property where we lead, but also casualty and cyber where there is growing demand," he said.

Marcell said Aon will also continue to invest in its facultative capabilities, where it has seen high single-digit to double-digit growth over the past eight to 10 years. In addition, he said the broker would "put more resources" into insurance-linked securities, where demand is continuing to accelerate, while Marcell also highlighted plans to grow its market share among U.S. regional insurers.