Bigger has never been Better … and NEVER will be. That said, Bigger has a chance to turn heads because more resources, eg. capital, talent, etc., often trump less — when used correctly!
Sophisticated insurance buyers are fed up with new directions, new claims and new faces … Power to the main street agency.
rehiring Jeff Greenberg…or they might be able to get Hank to take the job since AIG took leave of their brains and forced him out. Since Hank engineered the growth of Marsh they owe him a favor anyway…
I think an honest person who does not know what he is doing would
regain the stockholders trust. Remember, those who knew what they were doing
brought the company to there knees.
As a former “Marshian” I can say with great certainty that the culture had become toxic under Greenberg and Cherkasky did nothing to put that right. Large corporate clients don’t have any level of trust in Marsh since they know that they are all about the revenue and nothing else. Renewals got screwed up as the level of care for anything but new business dropped by a lot. The situation of top down pressure made me quit. Its simply no way to “run a railroad”. They will have to do a great deal to regain the public and investors’ trust. I agree they should break up into pieces and get rid of Guy Carp, any of the old MMC Capital and VC operations, anything with Mercer, small business, etc. and refocus on some core competencies namely large corporate clients, middle market accounts , private client personal lines and speciality lines like aviation, marine, energy and construction. It will be a much smaller and less powerful Marsh but it will have a chance to rebound.
I’m a company underwriter for a specialty line of business and work closely with Marsh. My experience has been nothing but professional – my contacts ARE engaged in providing superior customer service, and in turn, I make supporting their efforts a priority. Although I’m familiar with “the culture”, and as a former competitor, I laughed at their arrogance, in my current capacity, I appreciate what they’re doing, and getting rid of Cherkasky is just what the doctor ordered.
Bingo, to Just Wondering. That’s right, folks; even if it hurts. Nothing succeeds like success. Hank Greenburg did it with brains, balls,& chutpah. Jeff with arrogance..Hank I respected, Jeff nay so..-or just ask any of the AIG P&C Global (NYC)peeps, when Jeff ran (ruined) the unit 30 years ago. I was there. Hank brought in Michael in a spot equal to Jeffs’. Jeff got pissed and flew the coop to Marsh. Oy vey! (They couldn’t write better stuff on “All My Children”)
Bottom line: Spitzer wanted headlines & fame. He saw Contingency arrangements as illegal schemes.-Why? They very genuinely served as an incentive for broker & underwriter to do their best and to produce a deal most favorable to the client, without (repeat) without increasing the premium. I was also there as a broker and never (repeat) never saw anyone or anything which increased the premium wrongly.
So, “Idiot” Spitzer took down the alphabet empires, and we the shareholders should love the sob for his malfeasance ?
A note here: Hank could’ve successfully challenged Spitzer, but played hardball just as the “expose” was hatching. Admittedly, it didn’t play well to the consumers ears, and Hank was forced out.
Really a shame for AIG and the insurance industry. Hank provided a product in times when others were running from (eg) quake and flood. You might recall his ads in WSJ the day after major catastrophes, in which he welcomed new coverages
There’ll always be bums like Spitzer out there, but a true innovator and leader like Hank doesn’t come along too often
I was one of the ‘higher-ups’ at AIG with Jeff Greenberg but I was in the claim department. You can like or dislike Jeff but I can assure you that when one of the clients in the division I worked with (Fortune 500 clients) had a problem he wanted it taken care of and he wanted them to like the result. Don’t have a clue as to how he was on the production side but I can tell you that I respected his attention to client claim issues.
Are there any retired or laid off Marsh employees out there who may be willing to talk about how high up the chain knowledge or direction of the bid rigging and concealment of the reinsurance commissions and “PSA revenue” schemes went? I represent a retired Marsh executive/shareholder who trusted the company’s reports of regularly growing income and revenues and lost almost his entire investment. I would love to hear directly from anyone with inside knowledge, either on the record or off.
Email me at toknkok@aol.com
This company needs a seasoned executive that has credibility in the financial markets and a proven track record of cutting unnecessary expenses and producing organic growth.
Two names out there come to mind – Robert Willumstad (currently chairman at AIG) and Robert Devlin (former American General CEO) – these are guys that will have immediate Wall Street credibility and have the ‘know how’ to get things done.
Let them set the course over the next 5 years and meanwhile begin to groom Glaser and other internal candidates for the top job.
Bill Parcells has just turned down the Miami job and is now interviewing for the MMC opening.
If they’re serious about improving Private Client Services they’d have to get rid of 95% of management and go from there. It would be amazing what an improvement in morale would do for productivity.
Just a thought from one who’s seen it from the inside. It’s not a pretty picture.
Good call. I really don’t know why you are still in Asia & the Middle East. You operation here has no passion and my boss asked me to use another broker that is willing to look after our company interest in these areas. Wake up and look closely to your local operations in these places (can’t tell on other parts of the world)
The new CEO of Marsh & McLennan should be a person who has no Insurance Experience. This way, there would be more innovation of putting Marsh & Mc Lennan
Back on track. The word “contingency” is a dirty word that brought Marsh and McLennan’s demise. Stockholders are aware of this and will not invest until there is a change. Change the word ” contingency” and come up with a new CEO and Marsh will be back on top.
FWIW, Aon (Los Angeles) did actually let go a number of their “syndicators” (brokers/marketers) right before Christmas. Some of them were do-nothings, but several were actually high quality people. Go figure – another Greg “expense junkie” Case move.
With the exception of perhaps international accounts, neither Marsh nor Aon (or for that fact, Willis and Gallagher too) really do not bring anything worthwhile to the table.
Outsourcing is making all of them look like buffoons. Add to that the “good ol’ boys” mentality. As a former Aonite that now works on the client side, I can see just how poor their service really is.
It is good that you now work on your client’s side. Teach them how to become self-insured and saved them even more money. After all, you are paid to save your client’s money. What is the hold up?
Not only did Marsh & AON as well as AIG screw billions out of the policy holders they laughed about it at dinner that cost thousands of dollars. The sad thing is now the people involved are with other companies as executives pretending to be the good guys. Spitzer didn’t even scratch the surface and it was a game to hide as much as possible in audits so when it came to the real nut busting by regulators they wouldn’t get caught.
As a recent former employee I can tell all that the culture at Marsh is not one of service. I was with the company 17 years and had finally had enough. They have horrible management at all levels and very few of the truly talented workforce is left. I wish my formwe co-workers the best and hope they get out while the ship is still floating.
Geee. I was being considered for a top management position in LA. I won’t say what division. I went all the way through the process, fly to NY to interview and a few of the high level people in NY that interviewed me were very qualified, but two of them in particular were not. One ran a division of the company pbut had never actually been to the facility itself, (Ivory Tower) and the other talked on her cell phone with her daughter during my entire lunch interview. Hmmmmmm.
December 26, 2007, 9:42 am CST
Posted By: Strategist
Comment:
It is good that you now work on your client’s side. Teach them how to become self-insured and saved them even more money. After all, you are paid to save your client’s money. What is the hold up?
GOOD for all of us we will tell the real news!!Thank you!! xs_casualty
Comment:
Not only did Marsh & AON as well as AIG screw billions out of the policy holders they laughed about it at dinner that cost thousands of dollars. The sad thing is now the people involved are with other companies as executives pretending to be the good guys. Spitzer didn’t even scratch the surface and it was a game to hide as much as possible in audits so when it came to the real nut busting by regulators they wouldn’t get caught.
Before I can tell you more, I would need to know what your clients pay in premiums and what the insurance company pays out in losses.
For example, if your client paid $750,000.00 in premiums and the insurance company paid out $250,000.00 in losses for a given year, there is a $500,000.00 profit for the insurance carrier.
If this continued for 5 years, your client would have paid 3.75 million dollars in premiums and the insurance company would have paid out only 1 million. This would be a 2.75 million dollar profit for the insurance company.
Based on this example, it would be sound business for your client to become self-insured. Becoming self—insured, your client would have profited 2.75 million rather than the insurance company.
Bigger has never been Better … and NEVER will be. That said, Bigger has a chance to turn heads because more resources, eg. capital, talent, etc., often trump less — when used correctly!
Sophisticated insurance buyers are fed up with new directions, new claims and new faces … Power to the main street agency.
rehiring Jeff Greenberg…or they might be able to get Hank to take the job since AIG took leave of their brains and forced him out. Since Hank engineered the growth of Marsh they owe him a favor anyway…
You are right, but no one could have put the earnings back to what they were, due to the loss of Contigency commission.
Break up the company….they can’t decide what their core business is
I think an honest person who does not know what he is doing would
regain the stockholders trust. Remember, those who knew what they were doing
brought the company to there knees.
Strategist
Please roll over and play dead. Fire thousands of your empoloyees during the holiday season, grab your ankles and kiss whatever you find.
You are dinosaurs and even the Loch Ness Monster has more credibility than either of you.
You bring NOTHING to the table and expect to be fed well.
Reinvent yourselves every six months or so and confuse not only your customers but also your shareholders and employees.
When the grazing grass is all gone, go eat the bark on the leafless trees.
You are like a disaster movie, except that the Titanic would have to be so big it would wrap around the world so it could run into its own rear end.
And even though you think you’re smelling good food from your seat at the kitchen table, its only because its YOUR goose that is being cooked.
If Dickens could invent you, you’d be the ghosts of Christmas Past – with NO future.
Save us all the grief – just go away but make sure you leave the toys behind.
As a former “Marshian” I can say with great certainty that the culture had become toxic under Greenberg and Cherkasky did nothing to put that right. Large corporate clients don’t have any level of trust in Marsh since they know that they are all about the revenue and nothing else. Renewals got screwed up as the level of care for anything but new business dropped by a lot. The situation of top down pressure made me quit. Its simply no way to “run a railroad”. They will have to do a great deal to regain the public and investors’ trust. I agree they should break up into pieces and get rid of Guy Carp, any of the old MMC Capital and VC operations, anything with Mercer, small business, etc. and refocus on some core competencies namely large corporate clients, middle market accounts , private client personal lines and speciality lines like aviation, marine, energy and construction. It will be a much smaller and less powerful Marsh but it will have a chance to rebound.
I’m a company underwriter for a specialty line of business and work closely with Marsh. My experience has been nothing but professional – my contacts ARE engaged in providing superior customer service, and in turn, I make supporting their efforts a priority. Although I’m familiar with “the culture”, and as a former competitor, I laughed at their arrogance, in my current capacity, I appreciate what they’re doing, and getting rid of Cherkasky is just what the doctor ordered.
Bingo, to Just Wondering. That’s right, folks; even if it hurts. Nothing succeeds like success. Hank Greenburg did it with brains, balls,& chutpah. Jeff with arrogance..Hank I respected, Jeff nay so..-or just ask any of the AIG P&C Global (NYC)peeps, when Jeff ran (ruined) the unit 30 years ago. I was there. Hank brought in Michael in a spot equal to Jeffs’. Jeff got pissed and flew the coop to Marsh. Oy vey! (They couldn’t write better stuff on “All My Children”)
Bottom line: Spitzer wanted headlines & fame. He saw Contingency arrangements as illegal schemes.-Why? They very genuinely served as an incentive for broker & underwriter to do their best and to produce a deal most favorable to the client, without (repeat) without increasing the premium. I was also there as a broker and never (repeat) never saw anyone or anything which increased the premium wrongly.
So, “Idiot” Spitzer took down the alphabet empires, and we the shareholders should love the sob for his malfeasance ?
A note here: Hank could’ve successfully challenged Spitzer, but played hardball just as the “expose” was hatching. Admittedly, it didn’t play well to the consumers ears, and Hank was forced out.
Really a shame for AIG and the insurance industry. Hank provided a product in times when others were running from (eg) quake and flood. You might recall his ads in WSJ the day after major catastrophes, in which he welcomed new coverages
There’ll always be bums like Spitzer out there, but a true innovator and leader like Hank doesn’t come along too often
Higher Rod Fox
Hire Rod Fox? Is this Rod promoting himself? If so, go away you hack.
I was one of the ‘higher-ups’ at AIG with Jeff Greenberg but I was in the claim department. You can like or dislike Jeff but I can assure you that when one of the clients in the division I worked with (Fortune 500 clients) had a problem he wanted it taken care of and he wanted them to like the result. Don’t have a clue as to how he was on the production side but I can tell you that I respected his attention to client claim issues.
Are there any retired or laid off Marsh employees out there who may be willing to talk about how high up the chain knowledge or direction of the bid rigging and concealment of the reinsurance commissions and “PSA revenue” schemes went? I represent a retired Marsh executive/shareholder who trusted the company’s reports of regularly growing income and revenues and lost almost his entire investment. I would love to hear directly from anyone with inside knowledge, either on the record or off.
Email me at toknkok@aol.com
This company needs a seasoned executive that has credibility in the financial markets and a proven track record of cutting unnecessary expenses and producing organic growth.
Two names out there come to mind – Robert Willumstad (currently chairman at AIG) and Robert Devlin (former American General CEO) – these are guys that will have immediate Wall Street credibility and have the ‘know how’ to get things done.
Let them set the course over the next 5 years and meanwhile begin to groom Glaser and other internal candidates for the top job.
Bill Parcells has just turned down the Miami job and is now interviewing for the MMC opening.
If they’re serious about improving Private Client Services they’d have to get rid of 95% of management and go from there. It would be amazing what an improvement in morale would do for productivity.
Just a thought from one who’s seen it from the inside. It’s not a pretty picture.
Good call. I really don’t know why you are still in Asia & the Middle East. You operation here has no passion and my boss asked me to use another broker that is willing to look after our company interest in these areas. Wake up and look closely to your local operations in these places (can’t tell on other parts of the world)
As they say, every problem contains its own solution…the culture change is surely coming now…
The new CEO of Marsh & McLennan should be a person who has no Insurance Experience. This way, there would be more innovation of putting Marsh & Mc Lennan
Back on track. The word “contingency” is a dirty word that brought Marsh and McLennan’s demise. Stockholders are aware of this and will not invest until there is a change. Change the word ” contingency” and come up with a new CEO and Marsh will be back on top.
Strategist
I pray State Farm will get Ed RUST out.
ROTFLMAO
FWIW, Aon (Los Angeles) did actually let go a number of their “syndicators” (brokers/marketers) right before Christmas. Some of them were do-nothings, but several were actually high quality people. Go figure – another Greg “expense junkie” Case move.
With the exception of perhaps international accounts, neither Marsh nor Aon (or for that fact, Willis and Gallagher too) really do not bring anything worthwhile to the table.
Outsourcing is making all of them look like buffoons. Add to that the “good ol’ boys” mentality. As a former Aonite that now works on the client side, I can see just how poor their service really is.
It is good that you now work on your client’s side. Teach them how to become self-insured and saved them even more money. After all, you are paid to save your client’s money. What is the hold up?
Not only did Marsh & AON as well as AIG screw billions out of the policy holders they laughed about it at dinner that cost thousands of dollars. The sad thing is now the people involved are with other companies as executives pretending to be the good guys. Spitzer didn’t even scratch the surface and it was a game to hide as much as possible in audits so when it came to the real nut busting by regulators they wouldn’t get caught.
As a recent former employee I can tell all that the culture at Marsh is not one of service. I was with the company 17 years and had finally had enough. They have horrible management at all levels and very few of the truly talented workforce is left. I wish my formwe co-workers the best and hope they get out while the ship is still floating.
Geee. I was being considered for a top management position in LA. I won’t say what division. I went all the way through the process, fly to NY to interview and a few of the high level people in NY that interviewed me were very qualified, but two of them in particular were not. One ran a division of the company pbut had never actually been to the facility itself, (Ivory Tower) and the other talked on her cell phone with her daughter during my entire lunch interview. Hmmmmmm.
Hiring Rob Nardelli
Hmmmm, let’s see. Spitzer is off to Albany, no longer campaigning on the demise of the rich and arrogant MMC, so Cherask is canned.
December 26, 2007, 9:42 am CST
Posted By: Strategist
Comment:
It is good that you now work on your client’s side. Teach them how to become self-insured and saved them even more money. After all, you are paid to save your client’s money. What is the hold up?
GOOD for all of us we will tell the real news!!Thank you!! xs_casualty
Comment:
Not only did Marsh & AON as well as AIG screw billions out of the policy holders they laughed about it at dinner that cost thousands of dollars. The sad thing is now the people involved are with other companies as executives pretending to be the good guys. Spitzer didn’t even scratch the surface and it was a game to hide as much as possible in audits so when it came to the real nut busting by regulators they wouldn’t get caught.
Before I can tell you more, I would need to know what your clients pay in premiums and what the insurance company pays out in losses.
For example, if your client paid $750,000.00 in premiums and the insurance company paid out $250,000.00 in losses for a given year, there is a $500,000.00 profit for the insurance carrier.
If this continued for 5 years, your client would have paid 3.75 million dollars in premiums and the insurance company would have paid out only 1 million. This would be a 2.75 million dollar profit for the insurance company.
Based on this example, it would be sound business for your client to become self-insured. Becoming self—insured, your client would have profited 2.75 million rather than the insurance company.
Strategist