Rodney J. Taylor

Mr. Taylor writes on environmental risk management for IRMI.com.

Mr. Taylor is a managing director of Aon's Environmental Group. Aon Environmental is responsible for working with the Aon offices around the world to assist their clients in managing their environmental exposures.

In July 2006, the Aon Environmental Group acquired Breitstone & Co. Ltd. Mr. Taylor was the managing director of Breitstone & Co. Ltd., a specialized consulting firm providing assistance to parties engaged in complex transactions involving construction, environmental, and energy-related risks. Breitstone & Co. Ltd was in existence for over 50 years, with offices in New York and California. The firm worked with buyers and sellers of known or suspected contaminated properties, developers employed to construct capital on these properties, and contractors performing remediation services to provide insurance coverage that addressed environmental exposures. The firm also assisted lenders making financing available for the purchase, cleanup, and development of contaminated sites and lawyers representing the various parties to these transactions. Overall, Breitstone & Co. Ltd. developed insurance and risk management solutions for the complicated environmental problems associated with real estate and development transactions.

Mr. Taylor's work in the area of environmental risk management began when he founded the environmental risk management practice group for Sedgwick, Inc., an international insurance broker, in 1981; he has been active in the environmental area ever since. His most recent position in the insurance brokerage industry was as the managing director of the Willis Environmental Practice, headquartered in New York City and Nashville, Tennessee. He was responsible for the activities of more than 40 environmental specialists and brokers placing coverage on behalf of clients in North America. Some of the environmental insurance products that he has helped to pioneer include owner-controlled and contractor-controlled (wrap-up) insurance programs for Superfund, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense remediation projects; integrated insurance and funding products to insure cost overruns, the efficacy of the remediation processes, and other environmental risks associated with site cleanups; and insurance to offset or remove environmental liabilities on corporate balance sheets. He has also worked extensively with owners and operators of hazardous and nonhazardous landfills and with military installations being converted to public, industrial, and commercial uses.

Mr. Taylor is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a bachelor of science degree in engineering, and he is a Registered Professional Engineer. He also received a juris doctor degree (graduating cum laude) from the Brigham Young University School of Law and is admitted to the Illinois State Bar. He holds the Charter Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), the Charter Life Underwriter (CLU), and the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) professional insurance designations.

Mr. Taylor has written numerous articles on environmental insurance and risk management topics and is a frequent speaker at conferences and educational programs on environmental topics.