July 18, 2016 | less than a minute read

Lloyd's Takes A Step towards Online Business

Passle

As Ben Reid comments, the London Market needs to do everything it can to promote itself. With potential changes due to the EU Referendum result communication is going to be vital.

Within hours of the platform being launched the first deal was executed. Whilst this is not designed to fully replace face-to-face trading the platform will no doubt improve efficiencies and ability to scale.

With the 9 brokers and 42 carriers involved perhaps this is a sign that other aspects of their business will take a more digital approach with online communication and professional networking tools playing a role.

The Target Operating Model is the driving force behind these reforms and a new website will be launched shortly to communicate future updates.

Brokers bring their clients’ demands for cover — for anything from container shipping to professional sports stars — to underwriters, the two discuss the finer details and agree a price. Everything is then signed and sealed on paper documents, as it has been since the market began 300 years ago. That will change this week when the London market — which is centred on Lloyd’s but does not take place exclusively there — takes its first tentative electronic steps by allowing buyers and sellers of terrorism insurance to do deals online. “This opens a new chapter on how we do business,” says Ben Reid, chief executive of the London Market Group, an industry association. “It is absolutely fundamental to the future of the market.”