Business Insurance magazine has chosen Aon Risk Services and Aon Benfield as the winners of their Innovation Award. The specific technological innovations that earned them the awards were Aon Risk Service’s Aon Global Risk Insight Platform (GRIP)^® and Aon Benfield’s FAConnect.

The Innovation Awards recognize innovation and leadership demonstrated in products and services for risk managers. Entries were scored based upon originality, creativity, problem solving, execution, and results by a panel of risk manager judges.

"Aon's businesses are united in innovation, and we are honored that Business Insurance's panel of risk managers recognized the value these solutions bring to our clients," said Greg Case, president and CEO of Aon.

Business Insurance Editor Regis Coccia said, "Aon GRIP is an impressive tool whose name aptly describes its capabilities: it's a system that provides in-depth insights into risk patterns and trends around the globe. Armed with such insights, risk managers can make informed decisions about how to structure their risk management programs.”

By tracking annual placements of more than $54 billion in premium, the web-based Aon GRIP permits brokers to provide their clients with unequaled insight.  Furthermore, risk managers are helped in their pre-renewal strategies due to real-time information based on carrier quoting activity pre-binding.

"Aon Benfield's FAConnect takes the field of facultative reinsurance and makes that form of capital accessible to risk managers in ways that simply were not available previously."

FAConnect is designed for high-volume transactions providing clients with access to the broker marketplace on their computer desktops where they can quote and bind using their own facultative risks from a simplified interface.

"Business Insurance seeks to promote innovation in the commercial insurance industry, and the recipients of the inaugural Innovation Awards are companies that lead the way in serving risk managers," continued Coccia.