AOC Aon Corp.

Fighting has destroyed hard fought progress CHICAGO, July 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- A giant step in the wrong direction. That's what the current Middle Eastern conflict represents to Lebanon, which, according to an Aon Political Risk expert, had shown signs of "turning the corner," recently becoming more attractive to investors and underwriters. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20041215/CGW049LOGO ) That's not the case now, says Roger Schwartz, senior vice president of Aon's Trade Credit practice in New York. "Lebanon so far has been the big economic loser. Underwriters had developed a level of comfort in Lebanon recently," he says. "Transactions that wouldn't have been considered two years ago had been able to get support from private sector underwriters." Schwartz says this is a significant step backward for Lebanon, whose reputation for international investment had been obliterated during and in the years after the Lebanese civil war in the 70s and 80s. Beirut had been left in ruins after the conflict and the country's reclamation took more than a decade. Now, Schwartz says "there will be much work going forward even after the shooting stops." He says this just reinforces the need for hedging a company's potential risk in a region like the Middle East that is considered to be inherently unstable. Schwartz says companies can take risk mitigation steps " ... to keep their bottom lines from tanking." Case in point, he says, if a company owned a freight forwarding business in the port of Beirut or the local airport -- both of which have taken their share of hits from recent rocket attacks -- and its facilities were damaged, the economic loss might not be recoupable. Physical damage is not normally covered under a property policy. Political risk insurance, he says, could fill that coverage gap. Schwartz says the big concern for underwriters now is an escalation of the conflict into Syria and other Middle Eastern countries. 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 46,000 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. Contact: Al Orendorff, 1.312.381.3153, . 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 execute 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. http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20041215/CGW049LOGO http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: Aon Corporation CONTACT: Al Orendorff of Aon, +1-312-381-3153, Web site: http://www.aon.com/

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