Aon Consulting overshadowed by parent's bad story

Aon Consulting overshadowed by parent's bad story

Aon Consulting of Toronto is suddenly mired in unwanted controversy kicked up by its parent Aon Corp of USA, following the award of the private insurance study contract to the former by health minister Iris Evans, despite reports of financial irregularities in the parent company. The issue is threatening to take political overtones as the opposition is calling for repeal of the contract on ethical grounds.

Aon Consulting bagged the 1.5-million dollars project to analyse and research various schemes of insurance in the state, to eventually offer a solution covering medicinal expenses, non-surgical spinal or osteo-centric treatments, regular health check-ups and systems and projected hospitalization expenditures.

But the good news was immediately clouded by reports that the parent company in Chicago had recently been dragged to court for financial irregularities by three federal states, Illinois, New York and Connecticut. Aon Corp, USA, had been accused of compelling back door cash fees for pushing clients towards favored insurance associates. The additional cost of the bribes was carried over to unaware and innocent consumers.

In March this year, though Aon Corp had neither negated nor agreed to the allegations, it was ordered to pay up 190 million dollars as compensation to its customers.

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The dust had hardly settled down, when the sister concern Aon Consulting won the private insurance contract. The firm's acquisition of the same has raised hackles of consumer activists and opposition parties alike. They are united on the thought that handing the project to Aon Consulting despite its parent company's now tainted reputation was both irresponsible and foolhardy on the part of the government.

In response to the resistance, Minister Ralph Klein reposed confidence in the firm, defending the decision unequivocally. He said the parent company's irresponsible actions cannot be taken as a barometer to assess the consulting arm's credibility. He said they were two separate entities and have no correlation as far as the specific incident is concerned, especially considering their record of brilliant insurance work done for the state in the past.

As a defending analogy Health Minister Iris Evans stated, "If somebody has a situation in one member of the family, does that make the whole family suspect for it?" She acquiesced to being unaware of the parent story but maintained that the decision would still have been the same. Citing reasons for her stand, she said they got the contract because they offered the best deal. Evans also reassured the opposition that the company's progress shall be constantly monitored.

Commenting on her lack of awareness regarding the parent company's story as ridiculous, NDP 's Brian Mason said that Evans could have found information on the backdrop tale very easily on Google search.

The CEO of Aon Consulting, Ashim Khemani, stated that the parent company was already in the process of preventing such unethical business in the future, adding that the imagined nexus with Aon Consulting was non-existent completely.

Wendy Armstrong of the Consumers Association in Alberta came on critically on the complexities such businesses created by being a jack of all trades in the financial segment, often raising self-conflicting issues, which hurt the consumer at the end.

The opposition is of the opinion that it will be difficult to trust the study's report now, because it cannot be assessed whether the firm will work on the project without trying to further self-interest in the future. The accusations hurled at the government range from taking too fast and blind a decision to taking a highly uninformed one. For them, health care reforms cannot be trusted if such precedents are set, which emphasize commercial gain and viability over sincere customer service in a sector like health care.

The issue is snowballing into a political one with the opposition calling for reversal of the decision, presenting the case as one of cheating the trust of the people in the government.