Our predecessors helped clients navigate risk and opportunity, through war and peacetime, depressions and bull markets and times of peril and prosperity. From our very beginnings, we developed innovative solutions to address complex issues, enabled the growth of major industries and helped strengthen communities’ resilience.
Learn more about our journey, how we’ve led our industries, and our commitment to innovation and the greater good below.
At our clients' side
1899
From our earliest days, we’ve operated as a trusted intermediary, putting clients’ first before serving the providers of capital. While many other brokers focused on serving underwriters, our founders Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan worked to create arrangements that primarily served clients’ needs. #Industry Leadership
The largest company at the turn of the 20th century was U.S. Steel. Marsh convinced its CEO to take advantage of the billion-dollar corporation’s scale by self-insuring for fire risks in its myriad factories, mines and warehouses --a highly innovative and cost-saving solution. Marsh sealed the deal and opened a satellite office in New York City to service
the business. #Industry Leadership
Ingenious Solutions
1901
industry leadership,
Rival brokers Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan met while separately pitching the Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad. The directors of the railroad liked their pitches so much that they suggested the firms team up. They did just that, along with the Daniel Burrows Agency, and became one of the largest fire insurance brokers in the world. #Industry Leadership
Teaming up
1905
Guy Carpenter, an insurance analyst, recognized that the American cotton industry’s reinsurance underwriters wereoverestimating risk by analyzing individual years rather than multi-year windows. To solve for this, he created the Carpenter Plan, which considered loss experience over a number of years, and convinced theunderwriters to offer lower rates. He founded a small firm in New York to apply his eponymous plan to other industries. #Innovation
Getting Quantitative
1915
In 1910, Henry Marsh met the founder of American Telephone & Telegraph on a steamship liner to Europe. As they approached New York, Marsh made his pitch, leveraging the example of his firm’s work helping U.S. Steel self-insure as a case study. AT&T signed on, and the company took on the mandate of reducing fire risk to ensure reliable, continuous telephone service. #Innovation
Reliable Telecom
1920
The federal Social Security Act of 1935, created mandatory retirement programs for most Americans, which complicated matters for companies that offered pensions as an employee benefit. A group of those companies turned to our firm for advice. We hired two actuaries to develop a plan for those clients, laying the initial foundation for Mercer’s world-renowned pension consulting practice. #Industry Leadership
The Benefits Boom
1935
As the world became engulfed in WWII, the U.S. government sought insurance for war damages and risk. Many brokers wouldn’t take on the business because commissions were low. McLennan met with President Roosevelt in the Oval Office and decided that his firm would participate as an act of goodwill. The effort continued into peacetime, when we led the way in arranging a consortium of brokers to handle marine insurance on the Marshall Plan, which delivered much needed equipment and commodities to devastated Europe. #The Greater Good
In War and Peace
1940
In 1947, the Ford Motor Company centralized operations in the giant River Rogue plant, the largest integrated factory in the world when it was built. This greatly increased the automaker’s risk of business interruption if anything went wrong. Our firm bid for the business and sealed the deal by offering to immediately start a six-month investigation into the factory, along with loss prevention analysis and negotiations with underwriters to generate favorable coverage. Ford was now free to continue growing in the industry, unencumbered by potential losses due to the plant. #The Greater Good
Facilitating Growth
1947
In the late 1940s, a Marsh analyst named Ray Dundon learned of the difficulties that hearing impaired people had in securing car insurance. Moved to help, he created an organization of hearing impaired drivers that could purchase coverage collectively. The organization grew quickly, reaching a size that kept the underwriter’s losses manageable, enabling insurance for drivers who were hearing impaired. #The Greater Good
Moved to Help
1949
We have brokered group life policies for UN mediators and peacekeepers in the Middle East since the late 1940s. When the UN created the UN Emergency Force Peacekeepers in1956 and sent them to the Egyptian-Israeli border after the Suez Canal crisis, we insured them as well. The mission garnered Lester Bowles Pearson, the Canadian statesman who organized the force, a Nobel Peace Prize for his effort.
#The Greater Good
Protecting a Nobel
Prize-Winning Mission
1956
In 1975, we worked with Comstat, a company responsible for launching America’s television broadcast satellites, to broker insurance for all aspects of the business, from construction to launch and then maintaining the satellites safely in orbit. By working with a great many underwriters, especially in Lloyd’s of London, Marsh managed to gain coverage for this still risky business. Over time, as satellite operations became better understood, policies were easier to get. But we helped to pave the way – and used the experience to broker coverage on other satellites and rockets sent into space. #Industry Leadership
The Space Business Takes Off
1975
In 1978, we tapped Adele Smith Simmons, university president and non-profit leader, to join our board, becoming the company’s first female director, one of the few in the Fortune 500 at that time. Adele helped pave the way for subsequent women directors and women leaders throughout the firm. #The Greater Good
She’s the First
1978
There has been a three-fold increase in natural catastrophes since the early 1980s, and much of the economic devastation they cause is in the form of unprotected losses.
Guy Carpenter helps governments manage these risks and their citizens rebuild after disasters through the development of catastrophe bonds and other reinsurance strategies. Beginning with Mexico’s Fund for Natural Disasters in 2006, Guy Carpenter assisted Mexico’s government in recovering nearly half a billion dollars to rebuild and provide low-income housing after disasters. It’s worked on similar resilience programs for typhoons, wildfires and floods in the U.S., Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom.
#The Greater Good
Pioneering Public-Private Partnerships
2006
Still suffering from the shocks of the 2008 financial crisis, the European Central Bank and several European countries, including Spain and Greece, faced additional debt crises beginning in 2011. The European Central Bank turned to Oliver Wyman to perform a series of stress tests, which were instrumental in securing further capital injection into the European financial system and ultimately helped to prevent a second financial meltdown.
#Industry Leadership
Helping Avert Financial Disaster
2012
In 2017, GC Securities partnered with the World Bank to launch the first-ever catastrophe bonds and catastrophe-linked swaps to combat infectious disease. As pandemics are one of the least insured risks, the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) housed at the World Bank was designed to provide surge funding to developing countries facing possible pandemic outbreaks. In 2020, the PEF was triggered and nearly $200 million has been paid out to 64 developing countries with reported cases of COVID-19 including Haiti,
Sri Lanka and Mongolia. #The Greater Good
Planning for
a Pandemic
2017
Marsh McLennan has been making a difference in the moments that matter since the late 19th century.
Industry
Leadership
Journey
Henry Marsh assessed risk not as an underwriter would, but according to the potential loss to the customer. A fire in a factory might cause a small amount of property damage, but in disrupting operations, it could contribute to the loss of business. Marsh increasingly offered risk management, not simply insurance. And that’s why Marsh led the brokerage industry in hiring engineers to work with clients to reduce their risk. He believed that applying greater expertise would pay off in the long run. #Innovation
Your problem is risk, not insurance”
1900
In 1944, William Mercer was asked to design a pension plan for his employer, Powell River Company. He approached this assignment from a new perspective, creating a benefits scheme from scratch that would work best for his colleagues. His approach found a market, and Mercer started his own benefits consulting business, which would join our firm in 1949. He instilled in us that the best answer is always better than a good answer, no matter how well 'good' has
worked before. #Innovation
A Bespoke Approach
1944
“
The
greater
good
Innovation
In 1957, we acquired Cosgrove, which provided an entry point to insure such iconic film productions as Cleopatra.After an accident destroyed the film’s original reels, requiring select scenes with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to reshoot, we helped save the production by handling the insurance claims. Cleopatra went on to be the highest-grossing film and a winner of several Academy Awards in 1963. #Industry Leadership
An Award-Winning Claim
1963
A year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we completed our combination with Gradmann & Holler, Germany’s leading insurance broker. With 400 additional colleagues in the region following the acquisition, Marsh was the first insurance broker to open an office in East Germany, strengthening our ability to serve clients in the region and bolstering economic confidence in the reunified nation. #Industry Leadership
The First after the Fall
1990
In 1984, Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman recognized that market forces, including the deregulation and privatization of financial services and communications, meant that CEOs would need more than better ways of running their companies. They would need clarity on the future, new business models, and multifaceted strategies to implement change. The two set up a new company, Oliver Wyman, which joined our firm in 2003. #Industry Leadership
Clarity on the Future
1984
In 1980, we kicked-off two decades of international expansion through the acquisition of CT Bowring, which established the foundation of our larget London operations. We continued to grow our global footprint in the 90s with the acquisitions of Johnson & Higgins in 1997 and Sedgewick in 1998, which cemented our presence in Australia, Japan and Singapore, among other important international markets. #Industry Leadership
Ever Expanding
1980
Hurricane Andrew, one of the most destructive storms of the past century, resulted in nearly $18 billion in losses for the insurance industry. As a result, reinsurance markets shrunk and insurance companies became bankrupt overnight. We knew something had to be done to rejuvenate the industry. Through leadership in Guy Carpenter, we worked with the banking industry to create Mid Ocean Reinsurance, a completely independent company, which helped steer more capital to the reinsurance sector during this critical time. Mid Ocean Re was one of several Bermuda-based companies established to help surviving insurance companies spread their risk in case of large losses.
#Industry Leadership
Shoring Up the Insurance Industry
1992
HR departments have long had access to data on their workforces, but up until the mid 1990s, this rich resource largely went unused. That’s when Mercer began to apply data analytics and modeling to refine employer’s approach to hiring, promotion, and compensation. This revolution allowed people to become a differentiating asset in
the marketplace. #Innovation
Fusing Science with Talent Management
1995
On September 11, 2001, we occupied most of floors 93 to 99 of the World Trade Center’s North tower, near the top of the building. More than 350 Marsh McLennan employees and consultants were in the office that morning, and tragically all were lost in the
terrorist attack.
Following the attack, we provided immediate support to employees and the families of the victims. Within a few months, we began applying our expertise to help clients protect themselves against the financial cost of terrorism. We worked with Congress and the insurance industry to attain federal support for the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) which created a federal reinsurance backstop for terrorism losses, establishing a market for terror insurance. #The Greater Good
The 9/11 Tragedy
2001
Visit our memorial site
During the height of the pandemic, Oliver Wyman marshalled its analytic talent and public health experts to create a suite of models to support clients’ pandemic-related risk decisions and analysis. Since its launch the CDC-referenced Oliver Wyman Pandemic Navigator has been used by governments to decide when to open and close schools and by hospitals to inform capacity needs and therapeutic demand. #Innovation
Modeling The Crisis
2020
We have adhered to the principles of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), voluntarily measuring and disclosing our greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability strategy, since 2007. We made meaningful strides in the 2000s, reducing our carbon footprint 20% from 2006 to 2010. This work continues today through our most recent commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 15% below 2019 levels by the year-end 2025. #The Greater Good
A Smaller Carbon Footprint
2007
In 2010, we partnered with Heidrick & Struggles, to convene the first Insurance Diversity Roundtable. More than 60 senior business and diversity leaders from Marsh, Guy Carpenter and leading U.S. insurance companies and brokerage firms gathered for two days of discussion and education, and began identifying the particular challenges the industry faces in attracting and retaining diverse talent. #The Greater Good
Furthering Diversity in Insurance
2010
We launched a social impact team to organize our volunteer efforts globally in 2010. Today, colleagues receive one paid day off each year to volunteer. One in five colleagues take part in the company’s volunteering efforts and 50,000 colleagues have collectively volunteered nearly one million hours over the past five years.
The program has engaged colleagues across the world from working with the British Red Cross to assist refugees in the UK to volunteering during Nelson Mandela Day
in South Africa. #The Greater Good
A Partner in Our Communities
2010
Caring for our employees in moments that matter is a central tenant of our culture. In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact every corner of the world, we established a $5 million fund to support our colleagues experiencing personal financial hardship stemming from the pandemic. At the end of 2020, the fund helped more than 2,000 colleagues in 45 countries. #The Greater Good
Supporting Colleagues During COVID-19
2020
In 2004, Mercer established an industry-leading responsible investing arm, offering forward-looking advice on incorporating environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) considerations into investment decision-making and ownership practices. As a pioneer in the field, the United Nations called on Mercer to help develop the Principles for Responsible Investment in 2006. Among asset consultants, Mercer is still the largest dedicated Responsible Investment consultant in the world. #Innovation
A Responsible Investing Trailblazer
2004
For 150 years, we have grown by enabling clients' success through changing times and technologies. The challenges before all of us are vast.
Yet, so are the possibilities.
From our earliest days, we’ve operated as a trusted intermediary, putting clients’ first instead of serving providers of capital. While other brokers focused on serving underwriters, our founders Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan worked to create arrangements that primarily served clients’ needs.
#Industry Leadership
At our clients' side
1900
Henry Marsh assessed risk not as an underwriter would, but according to the potential loss to the customer. A fire in a factory might cause a small amount of property damage, but in disrupting operations, it could contribute to the loss of business. Marsh increasingly offered risk management, not simply insurance. And that’s why Marsh led the brokerage industry in hiring engineers to work with clients to reduce their risk. He believed that applying greater expertise would pay off in the long run. #Innovation
“Your problem is risk, not insurance,”
1901
The largest company at the turn of the 20th century was U.S. Steel. Marsh convinced its CEO to take advantage of the billion-dollar corporation’s scale by self-insuring for fire risks in its myriad factories, mines and warehouses --a highly innovative and cost-saving solution. Marsh sealed the deal and opened a satellite office in New York City to service the business. #Industry Leadership
Ingenious Solutions
1905
Rival brokers Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan met while separately pitching the Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad. The directors of the railroad liked their pitches so much that they suggested the firms team up. They did just that, along with the Daniel Burrows Agency, and became one of the largest fire insurance brokers in the world.
#Industry Leadership
Teamning up
1915
Guy Carpenter, an insurance analyst, recognized that the American cotton industry’s reinsurance underwriters wereoverestimating risk by analyzing individual years rather than multi-year windows. To solve for this, he created the Carpenter Plan, which considered loss experience over a number of years, and convinced theunderwriters to offer lower rates. He founded a small firm in New York to apply his eponymous plan to other industries.
#Innovation
Getting Quantitative
1915
In 1910, Henry Marsh met the founder of American Telephone & Telegraph on a steamship liner to Europe. As they approached New York, Marsh made his pitch, leveraging the example of his firm’s work helping U.S. Steel self-insure as a case study. AT&T signed on, and the company took on the mandate of reducing fire risk to ensure reliable, continuous telephone service. #Innovation
Reliable Telecom
1932
The federal Social Security Act of 1935, created mandatory retirement programs for most Americans, which complicated matters for companies that offered pensions as an employee benefit. A group of those companies turned to our firm for advice. We hired two actuaries to develop a plan for those clients, laying the initial foundation for Mercer’s world-renowned pension consulting practice. #Industry Leadership
The Benefits Boom
1940
In 1910, Henry Marsh met the founder of American Telephone & Telegraph on a steamship liner to Europe. As they approached New York, Marsh made his pitch, leveraging the example of his firm’s work helping U.S. Steel self-insure as a case study. AT&T signed on, and the company took on the mandate of reducing fire risk to ensure reliable, continuous telephone service. #Innovation
Reliable Telecom
1944
As the world became engulfed in WWII, the U.S. government sought insurance for war damages and risk. Many brokers wouldn’t take on the business because commissions were low. McLennan met with President Roosevelt in the Oval Office and decided that his firm would participate as an act of goodwill. The effort continued into peacetime, when we led the way in arranging a consortium of brokers to handle marine insurance on the Marshall Plan, which delivered much needed equipment and commodities to devastated Europe.
#The Greater Good
In War and Peace
1947
In 1947, the Ford Motor Company centralized operations in the giant River Rogue plant, the largest integrated factory in the world when it was built. This greatly increased the automaker’s risk of business interruption if anything went wrong. Our firm bid for the business and sealed the deal by offering to immediately start a six-month investigation into the factory, along with loss prevention analysis and negotiations with underwriters to generate favorable coverage. Ford was now free to continue growing in the industry, unencumbered by potential losses due to the plant. #The Greater Good
Facilitating Growth
1949
In the late 1940s, a Marsh analyst named Ray Dundon learned of the difficulties that hearing impaired people had in securing car insurance. Moved to help, he created an organization of hearing impaired drivers that could purchase coverage collectively. The organization grew quickly, reaching a size that kept the underwriter’s losses manageable, enabling insurance for drivers who were hearing impaired. #The Greater Good
Moved to help
1956
The federal Social Security Act of 1935, created mandatory retirement programs for most Americans, which complicated matters for companies that offered pensions as an employee benefit. A group of those companies turned to our firm for advice. We hired two actuaries to develop a plan for those clients, laying the initial foundation for Mercer’s world-renowned pension consulting practice. #Industry Leadership
The Benefits Boom
1963
In 1957, we acquired Cosgrove, which provided an entry point to insure such iconic film productions as Cleopatra.After an accident destroyed the film’s original reels, , requiring select scenes with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to reshoot, we helped save the production by handling the insurance claims. Cleopatra went on to be the highest-grossing film and a winner of several Academy Awards in 1963. #Industry Leadership
An Award-Winning Claim
1975
We have brokered group life policies for UN mediators and peacekeepers in the Middle East since the late 1940s. When the UN created the UN Emergency Force Peacekeepers in1956 and sent them to the Egyptian-Israeli border after the Suez Canal crisis, we insured them as well. The mission garnered Lester Bowles Pearson, the Canadian statesman who organized the force, a Nobel Peace Prize for his effort.
#The Greater Good
Protecting a Nobel
Prize-Winning Mission
1978
In 1975, we worked with Comstat, a company responsible for launching America’s television broadcast satellites, to broker insurance for all aspects of the business, from construction to launch and then maintaining the satellites safely in orbit. By working with a great many underwriters, especially in Lloyd’s of London, Marsh managed to gain coverage for this still risky business. Over time, as satellite operations became better understood, policies were easier to get. But we helped to pave the way – and used the experience to broker coverage on other satellites and rockets sent into space. #Industry Leadership
The Space Business Takes Off
1980
In 1980, we kicked-off two decades of international expansion through the acquisition of CT Bowring, which established the foundation of our larget London operations. We continued to grow our global footprint in the 90s with the acquisitions of Johnson & Higgins in 1997 and Sedgewick in 1998, which cemented our presence in Australia, Japan and Singapore, among other important international markets. #Industry Leadership
Ever expanding
1984
In 1984, Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman recognized that market forces, including the deregulation and privatization of financial services and communications, meant that CEOs would need more than better ways of running their companies. They would need clarity on the future, new business models, and multifaceted strategies to implement change. The two set up a new company, Oliver Wyman, which joined our firm in 2003. #Industry Leadership. #Industry Leadership
Clarity on the future
1990
A year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we completed our combination with Gradmann & Holler, Germany’s leading insurance broker. With 400 additional colleagues in the region following the acquisition, Marsh was the first insurance broker to open an office in East Germany, strengthening our ability to serve clients in the region and bolstering economic confidence in the reunified nation.
#Industry Leadership
The First after
the Fall
1992
In 1944, William Mercer was asked to design a pension plan for his employer, Powell River Company. He approached this assignment from a new perspective, creating a benefits scheme from scratch that would work best for his colleagues. His approach found a market, and Mercer started his own benefits consulting business, which would join our firm in 1949. He instilled in us that the best answer is always better than a good answer, no matter how well 'good' has worked before. #Innovation
a bespoke approach
1995
The
greater
good
Innovation
Industry
Leadership
Innovation
The
greater
good
The
greater
good
Industry
Leadership
Journey
Industry
Leadership
Innovation
Journey
Journey
Still suffering from the shocks of the 2008 financial crisis, the European Central Bank and several European countries, including Spain and Greece, faced additional debt crises beginning in 2011. The European Central Bank turned to Oliver Wyman to perform a series of stress tests, which were instrumental in securing further capital injection into the European financial system and ultimately helped to prevent a second financial meltdown.
#Industry Leadership
Helping Avert Financial Disaster
2012
Hurricane Andrew, one of the most destructive storms of the past century, resulted in nearly $18 billion in losses for the insurance industry. As a result, reinsurance markets shrunk and insurance companies became bankrupt overnight. We knew something had to be done to rejuvenate the industry. Through leadership in Guy Carpenter, we worked with the banking industry to create Mid Ocean Reinsurance, a completely independent company, which helped steer more capital to the reinsurance sector during this critical time. Mid Ocean Re was one of several Bermuda-based companies established to help surviving insurance companies spread their risk in case of large losses.
#Industry Leadership
Shoring Up the Insurance Industry
1992
A year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we completed our combination with Gradmann & Holler, Germany’s leading insurance broker. With 400 additional colleagues in the region following the acquisition, Marsh was the first insurance broker to open an office in East Germany, strengthening our ability to serve clients in the region and bolstering economic confidence in the reunified nation. #Industry Leadership
The First after the Fall
1990
In 1984, Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman recognized that market forces, including the deregulation and privatization of financial services and communications, meant that CEOs would need more than better ways of running their companies. They would need clarity on the future, new business models, and multifaceted strategies to implement change. The two set up a new company, Oliver Wyman, which joined our firm in 2003. #Industry Leadership
Clarity on the Future
1984
In 1980, we kicked-off two decades of international expansion through the acquisition of CT Bowring, which established the foundation of our larget London operations. We continued to grow our global footprint in the 90s with the acquisitions of Johnson & Higgins in 1997 and Sedgewick in 1998, which cemented our presence in Australia, Japan and Singapore, among other important international markets. #Industry Leadership
Ever Expanding
1980
In 1975, we worked with Comstat, a company responsible for launching America’s television broadcast satellites, to broker insurance for all aspects of the business, from construction to launch and then maintaining the satellites safely in orbit. By working with a great many underwriters, especially in Lloyd’s of London, Marsh managed to gain coverage for this still risky business. Over time, as satellite operations became better understood, policies were easier to get. But we helped to pave the way – and used the experience to broker coverage on other satellites and rockets sent into space. #Industry Leadership
The Space Business Takes Off
1975
An Award-Winning Claim
1963
In 1957, we acquired Cosgrove, which provided an entry point to insure such iconic film productions as Cleopatra.After an accident destroyed the film’s original reels, , requiring select scenes with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to reshoot, we helped save the production by handling the insurance claims. Cleopatra went on to be the highest-grossing film and a winner of several Academy Awards in 1963. #Industry Leadership
The federal Social Security Act of 1935, created mandatory retirement programs for most Americans, which complicated matters for companies that offered pensions as an employee benefit. A group of those companies turned to our firm for advice. We hired two actuaries to develop a plan for those clients, laying the initial foundation for Mercer’s world-renowned pension consulting practice. #Industry Leadership
The Benefits Boom
1935
Rival brokers Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan met while separately pitching the Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad. The directors of the railroad liked their pitches so much that they suggested the firms team up. They did just that, along with the Daniel Burrows Agency, and became one of the largest fire insurance brokers in the world. #Industry Leadership
Teaming up
1905
The largest company at the turn of the 20th century was U.S. Steel. Marsh convinced its CEO to take advantage of the billion-dollar corporation’s scale by self-insuring for fire risks in its myriad factories, mines and warehouses --a highly innovative and cost-saving solution. Marsh sealed the deal and opened a satellite office in New York City to service
the business. #Industry Leadership
Ingenious Solutions
1901
From our earliest days, we’ve operated as a trusted intermediary, putting clients’ first before serving the providers of capital. While many other brokers focused on serving underwriters, our founders Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan worked to create arrangements that primarily served clients’ needs. #Industry Leadership
At our clients' side
1899
In 2004, Mercer established an industry-leading responsible investing arm, offering forward-looking advice on incorporating environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) considerations into investment decision-making and ownership practices. As a pioneer in the field, the United Nations called on Mercer to help develop the Principles for Responsible Investment in 2006. Among asset consultants, Mercer is still the largest dedicated Responsible Investment consultant in the world. #Innovation
A Responsible Investing Trailblazer
2004
HR departments have long had access to data on their workforces, but up until the mid 1990s, this rich resource largely went unused. That’s when Mercer began to apply data analytics and modeling to refine employer’s approach to hiring, promotion, and compensation. This revolution allowed people to become a differentiating asset in
the marketplace. #Innovation
Fusing Science with Talent Management
1995
In 1944, William Mercer was asked to design a pension plan for his employer, Powell River Company. He approached this assignment from a new perspective, creating a benefits scheme from scratch that would work best for his colleagues. His approach found a market, and Mercer started his own benefits consulting business, which would join our firm in 1949. He instilled in us that the best answer is always better than a good answer, no matter how well 'good' has
worked before. #Innovation
A Bespoke Approach
1944
Reliable Telecom
1920
In 1910, Henry Marsh met the founder of American Telephone & Telegraph on a steamship liner to Europe. As they approached New York, Marsh made his pitch, leveraging the example of his firm’s work helping U.S. Steel self-insure as a case study. AT&T signed on, and the company took on the mandate of reducing fire risk to ensure reliable, continuous telephone service. #Innovation
Getting Quantitative
1915
Guy Carpenter, an insurance analyst, recognized that the American cotton industry’s reinsurance underwriters wereoverestimating risk by analyzing individual years rather than multi-year windows. To solve for this, he created the Carpenter Plan, which considered loss experience over a number of years, and convinced theunderwriters to offer lower rates. He founded a small firm in New York to apply his eponymous plan to other industries. #Innovation
Henry Marsh assessed risk not as an underwriter would, but according to the potential loss to the customer. A fire in a factory might cause a small amount of property damage, but in disrupting operations, it could contribute to the loss of business. Marsh increasingly offered risk management, not simply insurance. And that’s why Marsh led the brokerage industry in hiring engineers to work with clients to reduce their risk. He believed that applying greater expertise would pay off in the long run. #Innovation
Your problem is risk, not insurance”
“
1900
During the height of the pandemic, Oliver Wyman marshalled its analytic talent and public health experts to create a suite of models to support clients’ pandemic-related risk decisions and analysis. Since its launch the CDC-referenced Oliver Wyman Pandemic Navigator has been used by governments to decide when to open and close schools and by hospitals to inform capacity needs and therapeutic demand. #Innovation
Modeling The Crisis
2020
Caring for our employees in moments that matter is a central tenant of our culture. In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact every corner of the world, we established a $5 million fund to support our colleagues experiencing personal financial hardship stemming from the pandemic. At the end of 2020, the fund helped more than 2,000 colleagues in 45 countries. #The Greater Good
Supporting Colleagues During COVID-19
2020
In 2017, GC Securities partnered with the World Bank to launch the first-ever catastrophe bonds and catastrophe-linked swaps to combat infectious disease. As pandemics are one of the least insured risks, the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) housed at the World Bank was designed to provide surge funding to developing countries facing possible pandemic outbreaks. In 2020, the PEF was triggered and nearly $200 million has been paid out to 64 developing countries with reported cases of COVID-19 including Haiti,
Sri Lanka and Mongolia. #The Greater Good
Planning for
a Pandemic
2017
We launched a social impact team to organize our volunteer efforts globally in 2010. Today, colleagues receive one paid day off each year to volunteer. One in five colleagues take part in the company’s volunteering efforts and 50,000 colleagues have collectively volunteered nearly one million hours over the past five years.
The program has engaged colleagues across the world from working with the British Red Cross to assist refugees in the UK to volunteering during Nelson Mandela Day in
South Africa. #The Greater Good
A Partner in Our Communities
2010
In 2010, we partnered with Heidrick & Struggles, to convene the first Insurance Diversity Roundtable. More than 60 senior business and diversity leaders from Marsh, Guy Carpenter and leading U.S. insurance companies and brokerage firms gathered for two days of discussion and education, and began identifying the particular challenges the industry faces in attracting and retaining diverse talent. #The Greater Good
Furthering Diversity in Insurance
2010
We have adhered to the principles of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), voluntarily measuring and disclosing our greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability strategy, since 2007. We made meaningful strides in the 2000s, reducing our carbon footprint 20% from 2006 to 2010. This work continues today through our most recent commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 15% below 2019 levels by the year-end 2025. #The Greater Good
A Smaller Carbon Footprint
2007
There has been a three-fold increase in natural catastrophes since the early 1980s, and much of the economic devastation they cause is in the form of unprotected losses.
Guy Carpenter helps governments manage these risks and their citizens rebuild after disasters through the development of catastrophe bonds and other reinsurance strategies. Beginning with Mexico’s Fund for Natural Disasters in 2006, Guy Carpenter assisted Mexico’s government in recovering nearly half a billion dollars to rebuild and provide low-income housing after disasters. It’s worked on similar resilience programs for typhoons, wildfires and floods in the U.S., Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom. #The Greater Good
Pioneering Public-Private Partnerships
2006
On September 11, 2001, we occupied most of floors 93 to 99 of the World Trade Center’s North tower, near the top of the building. More than 350 Marsh McLennan employees and consultants were in the office that morning, and tragically all were lost in the terrorist attack.
Following the attack, we provided immediate support to employees and the families of the victims. Within a few months, we began applying our expertise to help clients protect themselves against the financial cost of terrorism. We worked with Congress and the insurance industry to attain federal support for the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) which created a federal reinsurance backstop for terrorism losses, establishing a market for terror insurance. #The Greater Good
The 9/11 Tragedy
2001
Visit our memorial site
In 1978, we tapped Adele Smith Simmons, university president and non-profit leader, to join our board, becoming the company’s first female director, one of the few in the Fortune 500 at that time. Adele helped pave the way for subsequent women directors and women leaders throughout the firm. #The Greater Good
She’s the First
1978
We have brokered group life policies for UN mediators and peacekeepers in the Middle East since the late 1940s. When the UN created the UN Emergency Force Peacekeepers in1956 and sent them to the Egyptian-Israeli border after the Suez Canal crisis, we insured them as well. The mission garnered Lester Bowles Pearson, the Canadian statesman who organized the force, a Nobel Peace Prize for his effort.
#The Greater Good
Protecting a Nobel
Prize-Winning Mission
1956
In the late 1940s, a Marsh analyst named Ray Dundon learned of the difficulties that hearing impaired people had in securing car insurance. Moved to help, he created an organization of hearing impaired drivers that could purchase coverage collectively. The organization grew quickly, reaching a size that kept the underwriter’s losses manageable, enabling insurance for drivers who were hearing impaired.#The Greater Good
Moved to Help
1949
Facilitating Growth
1947
In 1947, the Ford Motor Company centralized operations in the giant River Rogue plant, the largest integrated factory in the world when it was built. This greatly increased the automaker’s risk of business interruption if anything went wrong. Our firm bid for the business and sealed the deal by offering to immediately start a six-month investigation into the factory, along with loss prevention analysis and negotiations with underwriters to generate favorable coverage. Ford was now free to continue growing in the industry, unencumbered by potential losses due to the plant. #The Greater Good
In War and Peace
1940
As the world became engulfed in WWII, the U.S. government sought insurance for war damages and risk. Many brokers wouldn’t take on the business because commissions were low. McLennan met with President Roosevelt in the Oval Office and decided that his firm would participate as an act of goodwill. The effort continued into peacetime, when we led the way in arranging a consortium of brokers to handle marine insurance on the Marshall Plan, which delivered much needed equipment and commodities to devastated Europe. #The Greater Good
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For 150 years, we have grown by enabling clients' success through changing times and technologies. The challenges before all of us are vast.
Yet, so are the possibilities.
Rival brokers Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan met while separately pitching the Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad. The directors of the railroad liked their pitches so much that they suggested the firms team up. They did just that, along with the Daniel Burrows Agency, and became one of the largest fire insurance brokers in the world. #Industry Leadership
Teaming up
1905
The federal Social Security Act of 1935, created mandatory retirement programs for most Americans, which complicated matters for companies that offered pensions as an employee benefit. A group of those companies turned to our firm for advice. We hired two actuaries to develop a plan for those clients, laying the initial foundation for Mercer’s world-renowned pension consulting practice. #Industry Leadership
The Benefits Boom
1935
In War and Peace
1940
As the world became engulfed in WWII, the U.S. government sought insurance for war damages and risk. Many brokers wouldn’t take on the business because commissions were low. McLennan met with President Roosevelt in the Oval Office and decided that his firm would participate as an act of goodwill. The effort continued into peacetime, when we led the way in arranging a consortium of brokers to handle marine insurance on the Marshall Plan, which delivered much needed equipment and commodities to devastated Europe. #The Greater Good
An Award-Winning Claim
1963
In 1957, we acquired Cosgrove, which provided an entry point to insure such iconic film productions as Cleopatra.After an accident destroyed the film’s original reels, requiring select scenes with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to reshoot, we helped save the production by handling the insurance claims. Cleopatra went on to be the highest-grossing film and a winner of several Academy Awards in 1963. #Industry Leadership
Our predecessors helped clients navigate risk and opportunity, through war and peacetime, depressions and bull markets and times of peril and prosperity. From our very beginnings, we developed innovative solutions to address complex issues, enabled the growth of major industries and helped strengthen communities’ resilience.
Learn more about our journey, how we’ve led our industries, and our commitment to innovation and the greater good below.
At our clients' side
1899
From our earliest days, we’ve operated as a trusted intermediary, putting clients’ first instead of serving providers of capital. While other brokers focused on serving underwriters, our founders Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan worked to create arrangements that primarily served clients’ needs.
The largest company at the turn of the 20th century was U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation with sizable risks. Marsh convinced U.S. Steel’s CEO to take advantage of the new corporation’s scale by self-insuring for fire risks in its myriad factories, mines and warehouses, a highly innovative and cost-saving solution. Marsh sealed the deal and opened a satellite office in New York City to service the business.
#Industry Leadership
Ingenious Solutions
1901
industry leadership,
#Industry Leadership
Rival brokers Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan met while separately pitching the Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad. The directors of the railroad liked their pitches so much that they suggested the firms team up. They did just that, along with the Daniel Burrows Agency, and became one of the largest fire insurance brokers in the world. #innovation
Teaming up
1905
Guy Carpenter, an insurance analyst, recognized that the American cotton industry’s reinsurance operation was overestimating risk by analyzing individual years rather than multi-year windows. To solve for this, he created the Carpenter Plan, which considered loss experience over a number of years, and convinced reinsurance underwriters to offer lower rates. He founded a small firm in New York to apply his eponymous plan to other industries. Recognizing his talent, Marsh & McLennan merged with the firm in 192x. #innovation
Getting Quantitative
1915
In 1910, Marsh meets American Telephone & Telegraph founder Theodore Vail on a trip to Europe. As they approach New York, Marsh makes his pitch, leveraging the example of the firm’s work helping U.S. Steel self-insure as a case study. AT&T signs on, and Marsh McLennan takes on the mandate of reducing fire risk to ensure reliable, continuous telephone service. #Innovation
Reliable Telecom
1920
The Social Security Act of 1935, created mandatory retirement programs for most Americans, which complicated matters for companies that offered pensions as an employee benefit. A group of those companies turned to our firm for advice. We hired two actuaries to develop a plan for those clients, laying the foundation for Mercer’s world-renowned employee benefits consulting practice. #Industry Leadership
The Benefits Boom
1935
As the world became engulfed in WWII, the U.S. government sought insurance for war damages and risk. Many brokers wouldn’t take on the business because commissions were low, but McLennan insisted that his firm participate as an act of goodwill. The effort continued into peacetime, when we led the way in arranging a consortium of brokers to handle marine insurance on the Marshall Plan, which delivered much needed commodities to devastated Europe.
#The Greater Good
In War and Peace
1940
In 1947, Ford centralized operations in the giant River Rogue plant, the largest integrated factory in the world when it was built. This greatly increased the automaker’s risk of business interruption if anything went wrong. Our firm bid for the business and sealed the deal by offering to immediately start a six-month investigation into the factory, along with loss prevention analysis and negotiations with underwriters to generate favorable coverage. Ford was now free to continue growing in the industry, unencumbered by potential losses due to the plant. #The Greater Good
Facilitating Growth
1947
In the late 1940s, a Marsh analyst named Ray Dundon learned of the difficulties that hearing impaired people had in securing car insurance. Moved to help, he created an organization of hearing impaired drivers that could purchase coverage collectively. The organization grew quickly, reaching a size that kept the underwriter’s losses manageable, enabling insurance for drivers who were hearing impaired.#The Greater Good
Moved to Help
1949
We have brokered group life policies for UN mediators and peacekeepers in the Middle East since the late 1940s. When the UN created the UNEF Peacekeepers in1956 and sent them to the Egyptian-Israeli border after the Suez Canal crisis, we insured them as well. The mission garnered Lester Bowles Pearson, the Canadian statesman who organized the force, a Nobel Peace Prize for his effort. #The Greater Good
Protecting a Nobel
Prize-Winning Mission
1956
In 1975, we worked with Comstat, a company responsible for launching America’s television broadcast satellites, to broker insurance for all aspects of the business, from construction to launch and then maintaining the satellites safely in orbit. By working with a great many underwriters, especially in Lloyd’s of London, Marsh managed to gain coverage for this still risky business. Over time, as satellite operations became better understood, policies were easier to get. But we helped to pave the way – and used its experience to launch other satellites and rockets into space. #Industry Leadership
The Space Business Takes Off
1975
In 1978, we tapped Adele Smith Simmons, university president and non-profit leader, to join our board, becoming the company’s first female director, one of the few in the Fortune 500 at that time. Adele helped pave the way for subsequent women directors and women leaders throughout the firm. #The Greater Good
She’s the First
1978
There has been a three-fold increase in natural catastrophes since the early 1980s, and much of the economic devastation they cause is in the form of unprotected losses.
Guy Carpenter helps governments manage these risks and their citizens rebuild after disasters through the development of catastrophe bonds and other reinsurance strategies. Beginning with Mexico’s Fund for Natural Disasters in 2006, Guy Carpenter assisted Mexico’s government in recovering nearly half a billion dollars to rebuild and provide low-income housing after disasters. It’s worked on similar resilience programs for typhoons, wildfires and floods in the U.S., Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom. #The Greater Good
Pioneering Public-Private Partnerships
2006
Still suffering from the shocks of the 2008 financial crisis, the European Central Bank and several European countries, including Spain and Greece, faced additional debt crises beginning in 2011. The European Central Bank turned to Oliver Wyman to perform a series of stress tests, which were instrumental in securing further capital injection into the European financial system and ultimately helped to prevent a second financial meltdown.
#Industry Leadership
Helping Avert Financial Disaster
2012
In 2017, GC Securities partnered with the World Bank to launch the first-ever catastrophe bonds and catastrophe-linked swaps to combat infectious disease. As pandemics are one of the least insured risks, the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) housed at the World Bank was designed to provide surge funding to developing countries facing possible pandemic outbreaks. In 2020, the PEF was triggered and nearly $200 million has been paid out to 64 developing countries with reported cases of COVID-19 including Haiti, Sri Lanka and Mongolia. #The Greater Good
Planning for
a Pandemic
2017
Marsh McLennan has been making a difference in the moments that matter since the late 19th century.
Industry
Leadership
Journey
Henry Marsh assessed risk not as an underwriter would, but according to the potential loss to the customer. A fire in a factory might cause a small amount of property damage, but in disrupting operations, it could contribute to the loss of business. Marsh increasingly offered risk management, not simply insurance. And that’s why Marsh led the brokerage industry in hiring engineers to work with clients to reduce their risk. He believed that applying greater expertise would pay off in the long run. #innovation
Your problem is risk, not insurance”
1900
In 1944, William Mercer was asked to design a pension plan for his employer, Powell River Company. He approached this assignment from a new perspective, creating a benefits scheme from scratch that would work best for his colleagues. This completely new benefits plan found a market, and Mercer started his own benefits consulting business, which would join our firm in 1949. #Innovation
A Bespoke Approach
1944
I've never felt more optimistic about what we can achieve. The possibilities are limitless.”
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Managing Director - Sales and Distribution, Africa
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FPO
The
greater
good
Innovation