Willis Announces Don Urbanciz, Builder of InsuranceNoodle Retires

New York, NY  (CompNewsNetwork) - Willis Announces Don Urbanciz, who last summer led the management team that sold InsuranceNoodle to Willis, is retiring as CEO of Willis Small Commercial.  His retirement is effective May 15, 2008. 

After a long and highly successful retail insurance brokerage career that included leading the Chicago offices of two major brokers, Urbanciz joined InsuranceNoodle™ in 2000 to lead the building of its now industry-leading, patented platform for providing web-enabled insurance products to independent agents.

Commenting on Urbanciz’s retirement, Joe Plumeri, Willis Group’s Chairman and CEO, said: "InsuranceNoodle™ has already begun delivering the efficiency benefits and revenue growth opportunities that we saw in the acquisition.  Willis owes a debt of gratitude to Don not only for building a great company, but for so effectively integrating it into Willis."

Regarding his own retirement, Urbanciz said, "Our goal in selling the company to Willis was to provide InsuranceNoodle the ability to scale its platform faster in the race to dominate the delivery of web-enabled insurance products to independent agents and small and medium-sized companies.  We are well down the road in achieving that objective.  I leave behind a terrific management team, some of whom I’ve worked with for 30 years.  The company is in great hands."

Tom Ealy, who was Chief Operating Officer for Willis North America and had recently been promoted to lead the firm’s Commercial and Consumer segments in the U.S. and Canada, will take on Urbanciz’s role as part of his new responsibilities.

Willis Group Holdings Limited is a leading global insurance broker, developing and delivering professional insurance, reinsurance, risk management, financial and human resource consulting and actuarial services to corporations, public entities and institutions around the world.  Willis has more than 300 offices in some 100 countries, with a global team of approximately 16,000 Associates serving clients in some 190 countries.  Additional information on Willis may be found at www.willis.com.

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