NEW YORK (BestWire) — Willis Group Holdings Ltd chief executive officer Joe Plumeri set the stage during a recent conference call for a change in the company’s leadership by vocalising confidence in the new management and reminding investors that he is responsible for the financial results through the end of the year.Mr Plumeri said he understands that investors and analysts are not familiar with Dominic Casserley, the incoming CEO who was hired recently from outside the company. He said Mr Casserley is an outstanding choice to lead the firm and that the incoming management team will have a clean financial slate going forward.Investors prodded management on what attracted the board to Mr Casserley during the search for a new CEO. Mr Plumeri pointed out that Mr Casserley is a man of the world in that he’s lived and worked in the United States, Asia and England. “He’s travelled the world, he understands the globe; this is a global company,” Mr Plumeri said. Mr Casserley is expected to join Willis January 7 and will eventually be based in New York.“But, for the third quarter and the next two months or so, the fourth quarter, the duty is mine, the results are mine and the responsibility is mine,” Mr Plumeri said.The insurance broker’s third-quarter results were not as good as expected and Mr Plumeri was blunt at one point when he spoke about the numbers. The company posted a net income during the quarter of $26 million, which is a 56.7 percent drop from the prior-year quarter. Investment income, and fees and commissions, were both down from the prior year, while expenses rose slightly.“The quarterly results did not come in the way we wanted them to,” Plumeri said. “As a management team we were disappointed; we anticipated when we last spoke that we’d be better.”Plumeri said the third quarter of 2011 saw a one-time benefit that created an unfair comparison to this year’s quarter. He also said deals worth about $12 million in revenue in the final weeks of this year’s third quarter were deferred to the fourth quarter because they had not closed. The company is also warning investors of an unspecified, but anticipated goodwill impairment charge in the fourth quarter “that may be material.”Mr Plumeri did point to a few bright spots in the quarter, including five percent fees and commission organic growth in the company’s international business, which was driven by a turnaround in the UK business, a move away from contraction to flat growth results in North America and three percent growth of Willis Global. The company reported that its business in Spain returned to positive growth.“Everyone at Willis is clear about what we need to do: our job is simply to generate more revenue in the periods ahead,” Mr Plumeri said. “I am supremely confident in our ability to do just that.”Company officials said property rates saw about a five percent increase during the quarter, which was driven by cat-exposed risks. Non-catastrophe risks were flat due to an abundance of capacity in the market and carriers looking to diversify their portfolios. Casualty saw about a 4% increase during the quarter, driven by workers’ compensation with liability increasing at a smaller amount. The company said rate increases have not had a material impact on its revenue base.Mr Casserley, 54, is a senior partner of McKinsey & Co, which he joined in New York in 1983. While at McKinsey, Mr Casserley was based in the US for 12 years and in Asia for five years.