LONDON, 16th June 2008 - Ninety-eight per cent of British workers underestimate the true amount that employers spend on benefits, according to new research released today by Aon Consulting, a leading pension, benefits and HR consulting firm. The findings reveal a large gap between perception and reality.

In Aon's national survey of 1300 working adults, when asked how much they think their company spends on their benefits as a percentage of their individual salary, over two thirds (69 per cent) said they thought it was no more than 10 per cent. Almost half (46 per cent) believed that just 5 per cent or less of their pay was put towards their benefits. Almost a quarter (23 per cent) put the figure at between 6 and 10 per cent of salary.

In reality, British companies are much more generous, typically contributing between 20 and up to 40 per cent of salary in additional benefits. Only 2 per cent of those surveyed by Aon believed that their employer spent at least 20 per cent of their salary on benefits.

Examples of real company spend on benefits:
* Where an employee is earning £26,000 per year, 21 percent of their annual salary is typically spent on benefits.
* Where an employee is earning £60,000 per year, 39 percent of their annual salary is spent on benefits.

Employee benefits are non-wage compensations given to employees in addition to their salaries. Common benefits include private medical insurance, life assurance (or "cover"), disability income protection, holiday and pensions.

Most key groups have similar perceptions, although men are slightly more likely to estimate a higher amount – 13 per cent suggest it is more than 10 per cent of salary, compared with only 7 per cent of women. A significant proportion of all respondents (21 per cent) had no idea how much was spent on benefits.

Commenting on the survey's findings, Gareth Ashley-Jones, head of flexible benefits at Aon consulting, said: "There is a large gap between perception and reality - the research shows clearly that people do not understand the true costs of their perks and suggests that they are taking them for granted.

"Employers are underselling themselves – they must do more to get the message across that benefits should be taken seriously as an important and indeed very substantial part of remuneration packages.

"The findings are a blow for companies who have invested a great deal of resource into offering attractive benefits packages, which can be highly effective tools to attract, retain and motivate staff. If they are to be genuinely valued by staff, then they need to understand the scale of investment being made on their behalf - this is the value of providing total reward statements to employees."

Ends
For more information contact
Leo Wood / Josephine Corbett
0207 269 7137 / 250
leo.wood@fd.com  / Josephine.corbett@fd.com 

Notes to editors
About the research
The questions were placed online and invitations were issued to a sample of working adults from a national panel of 600,000. Controls were included to ensure a broadly representative spread of completions, by gender, age and region. 1,296 working adults successfully completed the survey between 4th and 9th April 2008.

About Aon Consulting
Aon Consulting is a leading human capital consultancy, helping organisations of every size to attract and keep the employees they need. We advise on all aspects of employment, including health-related insurance and risk; employee compensation and pensions; human resource strategy planning; job design and change management; and staff assessment and legal issues. Aon Consulting is a division of Aon, one of the UK's largest insurance brokers and providers of risk management services and a major force in reinsurance and the UK human capital consulting market. Aon Consulting Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

About Aon
Aon Corporation (NYSE:AOC) is the leading global provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting. Through its 36,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon readily delivers distinctive client value via innovative and effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions. Our industry-leading global resources, technical expertise and industry knowledge are delivered locally through more than 500 offices in more than 120 countries. Aon was named the world's "best broker" by Euromoney magazine's 2008 Insurance Survey. Aon also was ranked by A.M. Best as the number one global insurance brokerage in 2007 based on brokerage revenues, and voted best insurance intermediary, best reinsurance intermediary, and best employee benefits consulting firm in 2007 by the readers of Business Insurance. For more information on Aon, log onto www.aon.com.

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