100 Not Out

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success"

Henry Ford

 A trusted service provider, an unofficial training ground for its customers and a constant presence in market-wide innovation for decades…..just a few descriptors for a part of the London Insurance Market that’s been getting on with its business for the last 100 years.

For nearly one-third of 327 years the Lloyd’s Market has existed, the Lloyd’s Policy Signing Office (LPSO) has been a provider of the business services and technology that keep the market administration flowing – premiums paid, claims settled and policies issued.

 LPSO celebrates its centenary on 1st March 2016.  Created out of necessity caused by a shortage of work-force during the Great War, the 100 year old central services provider is still going strong today.

Now operating within “XIS joint-venture” formed in 2001 between Lloyd’s of London, the International Underwriting Association and Xchanging, each year it processes over 2.5 million insurance transactions valued at over ￡50billion, manages 55 million messages between its 400+ broking, underwriting and associated customers and is entrusted with the digital storage and retrieval of over 50 million policy and claim documents – the latter growing by about 20% each year.

Always innovating, in the 1960s the LPSO implemented central accounting and net settlement of premiums and claims and by the 1980s had embraced computing technologies to become one of the world’s largest users of the fabled IBM punch cards. More recently, it eliminated paper from its operations in place of digital documents, B2B messaging and electronic work-flow management between operations centres in UK & Asia. 

One of the first users of LIMNET and EDI in the 1980s, the central services provider has embraced market-wide ACORD global message standards and the Electronic Claims File as the way of engaging customers in London and beyond.

It is often said the London Market is a People market-place built on solid, long-standing relationships. LPSO continues to play its part; consistently attracting, training and developing talent which often moves on to flourishing careers in the broker or underwriting businesses they used to serve. Learning the job in LPSO offers an unparalleled opportunity to experience the rich diversity of business produced into Lloyd’s and London by all brokers and written by all carriers.

Moving out if its London home in 1977 to a purpose-built Lloyd’s Admin HQ in Chatham, Kent, the LPSO operation now has a global reach with operations in India and Singapore and the UK supporting a growing international customer base branching out from its London roots.

As ever cricketer knows when you get to 100 runs you should take guard again and go on to score another 100 - that takes skill, tenacity and adaptability. Present day LPSO and wider Xchanging business is exercised in ensuring that it remains relevant, commercial and responsive to the current needs and ambitions of the Market it serves, at a time of great change - within Lloyd's and the London Market, as well as within the global insurance and reinsurance market place.

So Happy Birthday to LPSO; may your future been as rewarding as your past.