AOC Aon Corp.

CHICAGO, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- These days, a healthy dose of business xenophobia might be a good thing. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20041215/CGW049LOGO ) That cautionary statement from Aon Trade Credit and Trade Risk expert Bryan Squibb sums up his view of today's trading climate. He says Latin American countries' resistance to the revival of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement this past weekend illustrates that " ... we're moving into a time of greater trade risk for multinational corporations." "The Latin American countries' intransigence on the FTAA is typical," Squibb says. "Several of these countries believe the American government's subsidies of American farmers give the U.S. farmers an unfair trade advantage. The Latin American countries are retaliating by resisting the FTAA." He says foreign companies typically conduct business less formally than their American counterparts. That can breed an environment of painful business recriminations not unlike what is happening between Seoul and Beijing today. Squibb says reports about Korean authorities finding parasites in some food imports from China have prompted Chinese authorities to retaliate by banning certain food imports from Korea. Multinational corporations need to know that investing in another country today has an element of political risk that hasn't existed before, he says. In Latin America, for example, the anti-FTAA faction " ... could contaminate the entire region, increasing the likelihood of loss throughout." Squibb says his political risk group is counseling large multinational clients to be especially aware of what products and services they are making and delivering to a given region, and equally important, what the company is extracting from that region. "Political risk should not be looked upon as an extension of a global property risk program. Rather, company risk managers should build political and regulatory risks into their crisis management plan, and inform their corporate board whether they buy cover for that risk. This is far more important today given the importance of supply chain management to the U.S. economy," he says. For example, Squibb says if the foreign owners of a bottling plant were suddenly refused access to water by local authorities unless the plant paid a hefty tax, with the proper political risk cover, the plant's underwriters would compensate the company to allow it to either pay the tax or negotiate for another water source. Note To Editors: Aon Trade Credit will unveil its 2006 Political and Economic Risk Map on January 10, 2006 in New York. About Aon Aon Corporation (NYSE:AOC) ( http://www.aon.com/ ) is a leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting. There are 47,000 employees working in Aon's 500 offices in more than 120 countries. Backed by broad resources, industry knowledge and technical expertise, Aon professionals help a wide range of clients develop effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions. This press release contains certain statements related to future results, or states our intentions, beliefs and expectations or predictions for the future which are forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from either historical or anticipated results depending on a variety of factors. Potential factors that could impact results include: general economic conditions in different countries in which we do business around the world, changes in global equity and fixed income markets that could affect the return on invested assets, fluctuations in exchange and interest rates that could influence revenue and expense, rating agency actions that could affect our ability to borrow funds, funding of our various pension plans, changes in the competitive environment, our ability to implement restructuring initiatives and other initiatives intended to yield cost savings, our ability to implement the stock repurchase program, changes in commercial property and casualty markets and commercial premium rates that could impact revenues, changes in revenues and earnings due to the elimination of contingent commissions, other uncertainties surrounding a new compensation model, the impact of investigations brought by state attorneys general, state insurance regulators, federal prosecutors, and federal regulators, the impact of class actions and individual lawsuits including client class actions, securities class actions, derivative actions, and ERISA class actions, the cost of resolution of other contingent liabilities and loss contingencies, and the difference in ultimate paid claims in our underwriting companies from actuarial estimates. Further information concerning the Company and its business, including factors that potentially could materially affect the Company's financial results, is contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For More Information Al Orendorff 312-381-3153 http://www.aon.com/newsroom http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20041215/CGW049LOGO http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: Aon Corporation CONTACT: Al Orendorff of Aon Corporation, +1-312-381-3153 Web site: http://www.aon.com/ http://www.aon.com/newsroom

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