After finalizing a major acquisition in 2009 and moving its domicile to Ireland at the end of the year, Willis Group Holdings P.L.C. is getting back to basics in 2010, executives at the brokerage say.

A year after finishing the integration of Hilb Rogal & Hobbs Co., which the brokerage merged with Willis North America in 2008 to create Willis HRH Inc. and renamed Willis North America last year, leaders say they are returning their focus to client service.

Willis reported 2009 brokerage revenues of $3.21 billion, down from $3.36 billion in 2008, while commercial retail brokerage revenue fell from just shy of $2 billion in 2008 to just below $1.9 billion in 2009.

That makes Willis No. 3 in the 2010 Business Insurance ranking of the world's largest brokers.

Don Bailey, chairman and CEO of New York-based Willis North America, said other brokers have faced similar declines during the past year. With premium volume falling in the soft market, brokerage revenues inevitably are affected, he said. “Anybody who's got a mature business is going to have that exact same dynamic. A dollar in premium volume two years ago is worth 70 cents today.”

In addition to digesting HRH, Willis decided to move its domicile from Bermuda to Ireland last year. Announcing the redomestication last year, the brokerage said it would move to Ireland for “a more stable environment” where it can remain competitive.

The brokerage completed the move at year-end 2009. It continues to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and its executive offices remain in London.

The firm's restated focus on client service in some ways can be traced to a meeting in Hampshire, England, in late 2009. Chairman and CEO Joe Plumeri, who Mr. Bailey said is adept at challenging the firm's leadership team, started a conversation about the purpose of the company.

“It's a discussion everybody here will tell you is always ongoing,” Mr. Plumeri said.

The result of that meeting is what executives at the brokerage call the Willis Cause, a list of the four things they say clients most want from Willis: the best prices and terms, the ability to get claims paid, day-to-day service and expertise in particular industries.

“Everything we do at this company has to fall under one of those (four) categories,” Mr. Bailey said. “It was a real galvanizing moment for this organization to kind of have that epiphany and clarity on what we do and why we do it.”

Mr. Plumeri said it was important to change the paradigm.

“I think the role of the broker has to change to a much more consultative person that has to be able to alert companies as to risk inside their company, which is going to drive insurance buying differently,” he said. “The old paradigm would be you have to have (directors and officers liability) insurance, so "Go get me the cheapest D&O insurance you can.'”

The Willis Cause “is a mission statement, it's a discussion outline, it's a presentation document, it's a multifunctional rallying point for this organization,” Mr. Bailey said. “Willis is about clients, (so) our revenues are going to come from clients—not from contingent (commissions), not from supplemental commissions, not from selling data, not from making a whole bunch of acquisitions. We're going to run a business that's basic, simple and focused on the client.”

The issue of contingent commissions has been a lightning rod for Willis. Mr. Plumeri and other Willis leaders have said since 2004, following former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's investigation of broker compensation practices, that the brokerage no longer would accept contingents. In February, after regulatory authorities eliminated a ban on contingents for Willis, Marsh Inc. and Aon Corp., Willis reiterated and heavily promoted its stance.

Mr. Bailey said forgoing contingent revenue forces the brokerage to concentrate with a “laser focus” on clients. But some investor analysts have disagreed with the approach, arguing that it diminishes the broker's profits.

“I think that when you leave contingents out of the arrangement or negotiation, then there's almost an inherent amount of money left on the table,” said Meyer Shields, Baltimore-based principal of equity research at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. Inc. “If I'm an insurance carrier, it's more valuable to me to be able to tie some component of broker compensation to performance whether that's volumes, profitability or some combination. And to the extent that the economic value of that incentive is removed from the equation entirely, there is simply less value to the insurance carrier and, all else being equal, there's going to be less compensation.”

Mr. Bailey said he hears a new story every week of the stance helping the broker's business.

“There's a long list of clients that we have picked up over the years, kept over the years solely because of our (stance on) contingents,” he said.

Mr. Shields said he doubted the stance would attract a significant amount of new clients. For example, Marsh Inc. has said it will not collect contingent commissions on placements for U.S. and Canadian clients in its core broking operations, so Willis' stance is not a competitive advantage, he said.

Still, Mr. Shields said he thought Willis had performed well in the past year and said the broker's success in converting HRH's contingent revenue into regular commission flow was part of the reason.

“HRH's weaknesses lined up with Willis' or Joe Plumeri's strengths, whether it be revenue generation or expense control,” he said. “But the timing was very unfortunate both in terms of the recession and because so much of the purchase price was funded through debt. (The) credit crisis made that debt ultimately very, very expensive.”

Mr. Bailey said the brokerage met or exceeded all its metrics on the HRH acquisition, including retention of producers and clients.

In addition, Willis is planning new initiatives to grow its business. One is a sales initiative that Mr. Bailey said would be unveiled later this year in North America, but he declined to provide further details.

Plans to increase organic growth will go ahead despite the soft commercial insurance market, Mr. Plumeri said.

“I get a kick out of the fact that one even calls it the soft market,” Mr. Plumeri said. “It's the way the market is. Eighteen out of 20 years, if you look back at the history of this business, there's a soft market. Shouldn't you build a business to be able to thrive in the market?”

Senior executive changes at Willis over the past year include the appointment earlier this month of Michael Neborak as executive vp and group chief financial officer. Mr. Neborak succeeds Patrick C. Regan, who left to join Aviva P.L.C.

Willis' stock closed at $31.50 on July 9. Its 52-week high was $34.98 and its 52-week low was $23.92.