Marsh & McLennan's focus this year will be on building its small-commercial market insurance agency business--a niche the company's chief executive said should be highly profitable, but which he conceded the mega-brokerage failed miserably to effectively cultivate in the past.

"We have successfully screwed that up year after year," said Brian Duperreault, president and chief executive officer of New York-based MMC, elaborating last week on plans announced late in 2008 to develop a new unit within the company to handle small-commercial accounts--Marsh & McLennan Agencies.

Discussing the new initiative during a conference call with financial analysts at the Merrill Lynch Insurance Investor Conference, he called the move a logical step to grow business in the small-commercial market--one that he said would prove to be very lucrative for the firm.