According to the Aon Spring 2005 Health Care Trend Survey, specialty pharmacy costs are on the rise, with a trend rate of 22.5 percent -- significantly higher than the general pharmacy trend rate of 13.1 percent. The specialty pharmacy trend rate is a new addition to the semi-annual survey as Aon has identified specialty pharmacy as an emerging concern for employers. The overall medical trend rate is down slightly from Fall 2004, but at 13.2 percent, it still maintains a double- digit percentage increase for the sixth year in a row.

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Specialty pharmacy includes high cost pharmaceutical products that are generally, but not exclusively, biotech in nature. Most require injection or other unique methods of administration and refrigeration or special handling. Conditions most commonly treated by specialty pharmaceuticals include anemia/neutropenia, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, multiple sclerosis. The annual per patient cost of these drugs can range from $10,000 - $250,000.

Randy Vogenberg, senior vice president with Aon Consulting's Life Sciences practice, said, "Specialty pharmacy is an increasingly important issue for employers, due to our aging workforce and the ongoing development of advanced drugs for diseases such as depression, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer. These drugs offer significant advances in treating rare diseases and increasingly common disorders; but they are currently very costly due to lack of generic competition and inconsistent benefit plans across managed care organizations. Because drug development continues at a fast pace, it's a complex task to forecast the increasing costs."

Specialty medications carry significantly higher costs than traditional drug products taken by mouth. They currently represent about five percent of overall pharmacy spending, but are expected to grow as biotechnology and genomic drugs become more readily available and commonly used. In 2005 alone, drug manufacturers report that 800 specialty pharmacy medications are in development.

Vogenberg advised, "Employers should look to implement cost management strategies for dealing with rising specialty pharmacy costs. Potential solutions include use of specialty prescription brand managers (PBM) and coordination with health plans, the use of evidence-based medicine to guide diagnosis and treatment, and analysis of claims and other data using economic models for proactive plan strategy."

Also of note is the consumer driven health plan (CDHP) trend rate, which is now modestly better than the HMO, POS and PPO trend rates. As predicted by Aon in Spring 2004, the CDHP trend rate is now lower than that of traditional health plans.

Bill Sharon, a senior vice president with Aon Consulting, said, "We expect to see improved CDHP trend rates in the future as consumers change their health care purchasing behavior and more data becomes available."

Overall, health care trend rates were similar to Aon's Fall 2004 forecast, with slight downward movement across the board in HMO, PPO, Indemnity and CDHP. The general pharmacy rate did not change, and continues to be almost identical to the medical trend rate. Dental and vision trend rates have increased slightly compared to Fall 2004.

Sharon said, "This survey provides the first look at 2006 trend rates. As in past years, our survey indicates that medical plan costs are forecasted to increase at double-digit rates. Reasons for these increases include increasing patient demand for services, an aging population and lessening of tight managed care controls, as well as an increase in medical technology costs, hospital costs, medical malpractice costs, increasing price and utilization of prescription drugs, and poor lifestyle choices."

  2006 Rate Projections
  The following table summarizes the trend rate for 2006:


  Medical                                 With Rx               Without Rx
    HMO                                    13.2%                    12.9%
    POS                                    13.0%                    12.7%
    PPO                                    13.0%                    12.7%
    Indemnity                              14.6%                    14.6%
    CDHP                                   12.7%                    12.4%

  Dental
    DHMO                                    4.7%
    PPO                                     7.1%
    Indemnity                               7.6%

  Pharmacy
    General                                13.1%
    Specialty                              22.5%

  Vision                                    3.9%

  To see complete survey results, please visit http://www.aon.com/ .

  About Aon

Aon Corporation (NYSE: AOC) ( http://www.aon.com/ ) is a leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting. There are 47,000 employees working in Aon's 500 offices in more than 120 countries. Backed by broad resources, industry knowledge and technical expertise, Aon professionals help a wide range of clients develop effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions.

Aon Consulting is among the top global human resources consulting firms, with 2004 revenues of $1.247 billion and 7,000 professionals in 120 offices throughout the world. Aon Consulting delivers integrated consulting solutions to help clients with employee benefits, human resources outsourcing, compensation, communication and management consulting.

  Contact:
  Dana Sohn, Aon Consulting, +1.312.381.4786, dana_sohn@aon.com
  or
  Bianca Wright, RF Binder Partners, + 1.212.994.7545,
  bianca.wright@rfbinder.com

This press release contains certain statements related to future results, or states our intentions, beliefs and expectations or predictions for the future which are forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from either historical or anticipated results depending on a variety of factors. Potential factors that could impact results include: general economic conditions in different countries in which we do business around the world, changes in global equity and fixed income markets that could affect the return on invested assets, fluctuations in exchange and interest rates that could influence revenue and expense, rating agency actions that could affect our ability to borrow funds, funding of our various pension plans, changes in the competitive environment, changes in commercial property and casualty markets and commercial premium rates that could impact revenues, changes in revenues and earnings due to the elimination of contingent commissions, other uncertainties surrounding a new compensation model, the impact of regulatory investigations brought by state attorneys general and state insurance regulators related to our compensation arrangements with underwriters and related issues, the impact of class actions and individual lawsuits including client class actions, securities class actions, derivative actions, and ERISA class actions, the cost of resolution of other contingent liabilities and loss contingencies, and the difference in ultimate paid claims in our underwriting companies from actuarial estimates. Further information concerning the Company and its business, including factors that potentially could materially affect the Company's financial results, is contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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SOURCE: Aon Corporation

CONTACT: Dana Sohn of Aon Consulting, +1-312-381-4786,
dana_sohn@aon.com ; or Bianca Wright of RF Binder Partners, +1-212-994-7545,
bianca.wright@rfbinder.com

Web site: http://www.aon.com/