NEW YORK—Eight companies have been named as recipients of the inaugural Business Insurance Innovation Awards. The 2010 Innovation Award winners are:

■ ACE USA

■ Aon Benfield Inc.

■ Aon Risk Services

■ Chartis Europe S.A.

■ FM Global

■ InterSys Ltd.

■ Lexington Insurance Co.

■ Marsh Inc.

An independent panel of judges, comprising professional risk managers, selected the Innovation Award winners by scoring entries on the basis of originality, creativity, problem-solving, execution of concept and results achieved.

Judges for the 2010 Innovation Awards were Julie Bean of Duchossois Group Inc., Ryan Brown of Peabody Energy, Ron Cooley of W.W. Grainger Inc., Ronald Gandolfi of Corn Products International Inc., Ellen Marie Menas of Potash Corp., Sarah Pacini of Advocate Health Care Network, Terry Sampson of the Art Institute of Chicago and Cindy Slubowski of Kraft Foods Inc.

The awards will be presented at a dinner March 8 at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel in New York in conjunction with the Risk Management Summit. Profiles of the winning entries will be published in the April 5 issue of Business Insurance and online at www.BusinessInsurance.com.

For information or to attend the awards dinner, please visit www.BusinessInsurance.com/InnovationAwards.

The Risk Management Summit is a unique, invitation-only educational program created exclusively for senior risk managers of Fortune 300 companies of the top 100 European companies, along with active risk managers who received Risk Manager of the Year® and Risk Management Honor Roll^® awards. It was developed with support from an advisory board comprising risk managers of some of the world's leading companies.

The summit will feature networking and well-structured discussions about the most

pressing risk management issues. These core topics will be introduced by a risk management professional and then explored in discussion groups and by a panel of senior executives from insurance and risk management services companies.

The topics are:

■Counterparty risks, which will be introduced by William J. Kelly, president of WJK Advisory L.L.C., a risk management consulting firm based in Morristown, N.J.

■ Global programs and risks, introduced by Frédéric Dhers, corporate risk officer for Veolia Environnement, a Paris-based environmental services company operating

worldwide.

■ Global regulatory risks and legislative developments, introduced by Christopher Lajtha, owner of ADAGEO, a Paris-based risk management consulting firm.

■ Innovation in risk management, introduced by Lori Jorgensen, senior director of finance and risk management for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp.

Sponsors of the inaugural Risk Management Summit include Zurich Insurance, Aon Corp., Chartis Inc., Dempsey Partners L.L.C., Liberty Mutual Group Inc., Lloyd’s of London, Marsh Inc. and Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc.

For information on the Risk Management Summit, the Innovation Awards or sponsorship opportunities, please go online to www.BusinessInsurance.com/ RMSummit.