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Director, Excess Casualty Brokerage
Aon
Longboat Key, Fla.

Instead of asking, "What have you done for me lately?," Monica Brecka's clients ask rhetorically, "What has she not done?"

According to one risk manager at a large chemical producerer, Brecka's constant "reminders" to underwriters about open items, delayed responses and need for corrections have enabled the program to flow smoothly.

"She has also done Aon credit in high-level meetings with my management, opining on claim matters involving coverage interpretations, which have later been corroborated by the insurers whose policies she was analyzing," that client said.

Brecka also got credit for the way she has developed contacts at the highest levels. Clients "appreciate the relationships she has established with not only our day-to-day underwriters, but also their senior management," said the risk manager. "These relationships, and her attention to detail, coupled with her broad knowledge of the marketplace and our specific account, has certainly enabled her to achieve coverage grants, which would not have been available without that rapport."

It also takes a little moxie to be able to take individual solutions and turn that learning into best practices.

Brecka led just such an initiative in 2007. Her team developed a detailed analysis of 11 lead umbrella forms, as well as a set of recommended endorsements for each form. These analyses were then vetted with carriers' senior underwriting personnel. The result was a proprietary tool that was launched in October on Aon's intranet.

Managing Director
Aon
Avon, Conn.

Creativity is not often the first word that jumps to mind when honoring brokers, but it leaps from the tongues of those who work with Gail Norstrom.

"He is very creative in coming up with gap solutions for companies with multiple operations and large exposures," said the risk manager for one major chemical company.

Most large chemical producers are active in many countries, but operational requirements and market regulations vary greatly between nations and regions. Some common chemicals in the United States are sharply restricted in the European Union, and vice versa.

Many chemical companies have legacy issues from when regulated products were less proscribed. Clients with those issues cited Norstrom's ability to preserve and extend exemptions that keep their coverage complete and their premiums manageable. Nordstrom was also credited with "artful presentations" and "brilliant modeling."

In 2007, specifically, he authored an "innovative manuscripting" and successfully placed an unusual, even "unique," coverage, said clients.

Kudos for the past year also came for offering perceptive and effective determinations of which clients are better off retaining risk or transferring it. In one situation, a client had a portion of its Atlantic named-windstorm coverage eliminated due to the actions of an oil industry captive pool. Norstrom was able to use catastrophe modeling to devise appropriate attachment points and pricing to restore the missing coverage.

Senior Vice President
Marsh
Philadelphia

Most brokers have cards, cash, change and keys in their pockets. O'Neill has those and something much more rare: premium kryptonite. The risk managers who mentioned O'Neill all talked about his ability to push premiums lower while maintaining or even expanding coverage.

"He continues to work to drive our costs down," said one risk manager. "Jon pushes our U.S. insurers to streamline our policies and helps me to coordinate coverage terms and conditions between the United States and our (offshore) parent company. Jon is very knowledgeable of the specialty chemicals market, and is very driven to deliver results."

Given that reputation, one might think that carriers would shy away from his placements. On the contrary.

"Jon has a very good rapport with the underwriters," said a client. "That is the case even though he is very aggressive in getting better terms and conditions for us. We just completed our renewal, and he really was very aggressive. I was surprised. Over the last few years he has been able to get us significant decreases. So I was trying to be realistic going into the renewals this year. Jon was still able to get us a healthy decrease this year. I credit that to his persistence."

In another case, O'Neill provided an all-lines, guaranteed-cost coverage quotation for a newly formed venture capital startup chemical company to protect the existing limited letters of credit and bring the insurance in under budget.

Managing Director
Marsh
New York

Duncan Ellis is only one man. But from the Power Broker^TM recommendations that he received, it would be easy to think that there were two of him. One insurance buyer for an international chemical company lauded Ellis for his "intellectual grasp of the property market."

In an asset-based business scattered around many different national and local jurisdictions, long experience and lofty brain power are credited with giving clients leverage in both placement and premium.

Separately, there is Duncan Ellis the swell fellow with "great rapport with the carriers," said one risk manager. Those personal relationships are what makes the difference in placement and in pricing. He knows the market well, but more importantly, he is well known in the market.

So will the real Duncan Ellis please stand up? The intellectual or the back-slapper? Shrewd operator or magnetic personality? All of the above. As managing director in the New York office of the North American Property & International Practice, Ellis oversees about 161 brokers and is also directly involved with many of his region's larger global clients.

He started as an underwriter for Chubb in New York, rising to manager before moving to what was then the Multinational Resources Department. That evolved into the Property & International Practice group. Ellis has also served in the placement group. Clients suggested that getting his ticket punched in many different sectors of the business gives him both the insight and the personal connections.

Managing Director
Marsh
New York

Chemical manufacturing is an extremely capital-intensive business. Many companies are self-insured for at least a portion of their exposures; some are majority self-insured. To that market, Jill Sulkes brings both financial and legal acumen that clients said makes their risk and financial management easier.

The insurance buyer for one of the oldest and largest chemical companies in the world cited understanding of credit markets and of broader economic issues facing the insureds as an important skill set for Sulkes. As the global credit crunch developed through the second half of 2007, those skills served clients well.

The chemical sector has been among those to embrace enterprise risk management, and in this Sulkes got credit for her holistic skills ranging as widely as investments and employment. Other complex challenges facing many long-established companies are legacy exposures and a shifting regulatory environment. Sulkes was recognized for her diligence in keeping clients current through updates, briefings and trend papers.

Her client service is also helped by her law degree, which gives her extensive training in hypothetical claims analysis, contract interpretation and contract drafting.

Sulkes was credited by her chemical company client with reviewing and even drafting a full range of agreements from simple transactions to contractual wording. Insureds have also asked Sulkes to work with their legal teams, both inside the company and retained outside firms, during the renewal process.