Aon bolsters public sector practice with big hire from FEMA

Global re/insurance broker  Aon has hired a FEMA chief to lead its US and global initiatives in the public sector. The appointee will collaborate with governmental entities to identify, quantify, and mitigate emerging sources of risk.

Andy Neal (pictured) has been named managing director of the firm’s Public Sector Partnership.

Based in Washington, D.C., Neal joins Aon from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) where he was National Flood Insurance Program chief actuary and branch chief, actuarial and catastrophic modeling.

In his new role, Neal will report to Geoff Hickman, COO of Aon’s Public Sector Partnership, and Joe Monaghan, CEO of Aon’s Public Sector Partnership, and will focus on US as well as global initiatives.

Neal has more than 20 years of industry experience, most recently leading the actuarial and catastrophe modeling teams to support the more than 4 million policyholders of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) – representing over $4 billion in insurance premium and more than $1.3 trillion of coverage – as well as providing strategic leadership to FEMA’s National Hazard’s Risk Assessment Program team that supports the National Risk Index.

In his role at FEMA, Neal drove to bring transparency to the risk held by the NFIP and to develop financial tools to manage that risk. He led the development of National Risk Rating 2.0: Equity in Action – a complete overhaul of the NFIP’s rating plan to use both private sector and public sector catastrophe models, incorporating the latest actuarial approaches to natural catastrophe risk to ready the NFIP for volatility due to climate change and future conditions. He also led the implementation of the NFIP’s first reinsurance and catastrophe bond covers.

The Public Sector Partnership is Aon’s dedicated public sector practice focused exclusively on working with governmental entities to identify, quantify and reduce new and emerging sources of risk.

Monaghan said: “We welcome Andy to Aon. His experience in federal risk management and extreme weather analytics, combined with Aon’s climate risk modeling and advisory capabilities, expands the impact we can have for government agencies and other institutions that are working to understand their risks related to climate change and shape better decisions as they navigate increasing volatility.”

George deMenocal, chairman of Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions in the US, said: “Over the past several years, Aon has been helping governments around the world quantify, mitigate and reduce risk. Andy joining our team demonstrates Aon’s investment and commitment to the public sector, as we continue to develop innovative public-private partnerships that protect taxpayers, ‘crowd-in’ private capital and solve significant challenges.”

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