Aon Corp, Tops Marsh in brokerage revenues.

In 2006, Aon Corp.'s risk and insurance brokerage revenues increased to $5.6 billion from $5.4 billion, surpassing its biggest rival Marsh & McLennan Cos., as the largest global insurance broker based on brokerage revenues alone.

For New York-based Marsh, revenue from risk and insurance services dipped from about $5.6 billion in 2005 to $5.5 billion last year, although consulting fees and investment income still placed Marsh above Aon in terms of total revenue.

The year-end financial results were revealed in both companies' annual reports at the beginning of March.

Last year, Chicago-based Aon closed the brokerage revenue gap between itself and Marsh, whose business was rocked the hardest by the bid-rigging scandal and investigations of recent years.

In a recent interview, Greg Case, president and chief executive officer of Aon, said the company has made significant progress but isn't where it ought to be.

How significant is it that you've surpassed your biggest rival as the largest insurance broker based on brokerage revenues?

It's not something we've really focused on. Candidly, we have a lot of respect for all the players that participate in our space. Our focus is and continues to be on our clients and colleagues around the world. We continue to invest in things that we believe would help strengthen and grow our firm. We made some good progress, but we're not really where we want to be.

Are you starting to see any benefits from the cost-cutting initiatives you unveiled last year?

For us, the cost cuts are really about getting more efficient. It's a product of how Aon has evolved over the years. Aon has focused more on building the platform and not shaping the efficiency of it. So we have, for example, multiple corporate centers, and a lot of the cutting is around that. Our focus is around the growth ... of our firm and investing in it.

Do you think the newly introduced broker compensation scheme adequately compensates your brokers for what they do?

We're still looking at this aspect of how we get compensated. However, what we really want to do, irrespective of the form, is make sure we have distinctive value, make sure the clients understand it and that any payment is fully transparent.

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