One of the key topics for this year's Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) conference in Chicago will be what impact September 11 may have had on the insurance industry.

For chief executives and risk managers looking at how to protect their company and overseas offices, the world seems a very different place to how it looked just three years ago.

At ACE Limited, this change in outlook has prompted some corporate "soul searching" and has led it to reassess how its customers think about insurance.

Today the company launched an integrated communications campaign emphasising its ability to provide global protection for its clients around the world.

Delegates at the RIMS conference in Chicago have been among the first to see elements of the multi-million marketing campaign.

The company has changed its former motto "Take away the risk and you can do anything" and replaced it with a punchy and unconventional set of related thoughts: "Protection. It's not the end. It's the beginning. Continue."

The key word is "protection." Despite the staggering challenges to the economy since September 11, 2001, business needs to keep moving, and must be protected to do so. "Continue" is also a concept that may strike a chord with RIMS delegates.

Their presence at Chicago means that most dismissed the fear of flying during the war and the current SAR virus health scare and decided "life goes on."

According to Wendy Davis Johnson, director of global communications for ACE Limited, market research has revealed an acute need for precisely the kind of global protection that ACE provides. "One of the risk managers we spoke to said that before September 11, his chief executive didn't even know his name: now he's got him on speed dial."

Risk managers are also facing the first global hard market that most people have ever experienced.

As ACE's chairman and chief executive officer Brian Duperreault puts it : "In today's environment of a hard insurance market, restricted coverage and budget cuts, ACE is committed to providing the security and protection that businesses need in order to succeed.

"Our new strategy assures our clients that we have the depth of capabilities and innovative solutions needed in today's complex marketplace."

Part of an integrated campaign, the new message of Global Protection will appear consistently through all of ACE's communications: not only the advertising campaign, but also the annual reports and the way that executives speak to the media.

The publicity and promotional part of the campaign has focused on RIMS where delegates have been bombarded with the new ACE message. Shuttle buses to and from the McCormick Place Lakeside Center have been wrapped in the Global Protection banner.

Hotel key cards and convention information kits have been branded with the motto. Print ads are featuring in trade publications being distributed here and, finally, two 30-second television spots run on the RIMS in-house TV channel.

These are no ordinary TV commercials. Made by the cinematographer for the Spike Jonze films Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, they feature a continuum of universal images usually associated with protection.

Safe doors, drawbridges, rain hats, windbreakers, and even the peel of an orange and the lid of an eye.

However, in an evocative reversal, each of these is shown not closing but opening, conveying the message that protection is not what it guards you against, it is what it lets you do.

The images describe the essence of the benefits of protection followed by a voice-over which addresses the global aspect.

Mrs. Davis Johnson says that ACE is delighted with the campaign. "It's image building advertising," she explains, pointing out that the name "Ace" is used by scores of unrelated businesses around the world. "ACE is an ubiquitous name."

The agency involved was the New York office of Doremus Advertising and the campaign was driven by ACE Limited's global communications department, a team made up entirely of Bermudians, including Kelly Corday, Adorouke Bademosi Lubin, Lilla Zuill, Frances Marshall and Jannell Dill.

They deliberately used international images, easy to translate and culturally pervasive. All part of the ultimate aim to raise the brand recognition of ACE all over the world.

"In some parts of the world people associate the name ACE with washing detergent....We feel that we've absolutely come up with something that does differentiate us."