Marsh (company)
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| Subsidiary (LLC) | |
| Industry | Professional services |
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Key people
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| Products | Insurance Brokerage and Risk Management |
| Revenue | $13.6 billion (2016) |
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Number of employees
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~30,200 (2015) |
| Parent | Marsh & McLennan Companies |
| Website | www.marsh.com |
Marsh is a global professional services firm, headquartered in New York City with operations in insurance broking and risk management. Marsh is a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies and a member of its Risk & Insurance Services business unit. Marsh's $5.7 billion in 2015 revenue accounted for 44% of the parent company's total fiscal year revenue.
Marsh’s insurance brokering and risk management business began in the first decade of the twentieth century, when it was formed by Henry Marsh and Donald McLennan with operations in New York and Chicago, where McLennan had studied railroad risk and insurance needs by spending 30 days riding the rails. At the time, the company was known as Marsh & McLennan (M&M). Today, Marsh’s insurance brokerage unit operates as a separate business, known simply as Marsh, in a holding company structure, yet many media reports still erroneously refer to this brokerage unit as Marsh & McLennan.
The 1960s era was a particularly notable period for the company, including an initial public offering in 1962 and a 1969 reorganization that brought about the holding company configuration, whereby the company began to offer its services under the banners of separately managed companies.
In 2001, as the company continued to expand globally, Marsh acquired South African company Alexander Forbes’ African risk management and brokerage businesses in 11 countries for $115.5 million.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which resulted in the deaths of many employees of both Marsh and Marsh & McLennan, Marsh’s risk management division formed a crisis consulting practice, led by Paul Bremer, and formed an alliance with Control Risks Group, a security and crisis-management specialist.
In 2004, Marsh was involved in a brokerage bid rigging scandal that plagued much of the insurance industry, including brokerage rivals Aon and Willis Group, and insurer AIG. In a lawsuit, Eliot Spitzer, then New York State’s attorney general, accused Marsh of not serving as an unbiased broker, leading to increased costs for clients and higher fees for Marsh. In early 2005, Marsh agreed to pay $850 million to settle the lawsuit and compensate clients whose commercial insurance it arranged from 2001 to 2004.
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Wikipedia