Views from the CIO's Office

Well, this CIO doesn’t actually have an office, more a perch in the middle of the throng, but we are very excited about our office move next month which will improve the view I’ve no doubt. More on that in a moment.

As I enter my 40th year working in the London Insurance Market, I felt the urge to pen a few brief thoughts reflecting on what’s been going on here at Atrium and in the wider market this year.

First, we’ve had some exciting changes of leadership.

Our much-admired CEO Richard Harries, retired a couple of months ago and we are excited that we scooped John Fowle as his replacement who is joining us very shortly. This change paved the way for a number of other internal promotions and new roles including James Cox as our MD.

Secondly, our Working environment.

Atrium has occupied the 7th floor in Lloyd’s for decades. But we’ve outgrown this space and in a few weeks’ time we are moving up to the 20th Floor of the newest and most sustainable tower in the city – 8 Bishopsgate on the corner of Leadenhall Street.

This move is enabling us to double down on some of the great changes we implemented during our enforced lock-down in terms of our flexible and collaborative approach to work. Although, we don’t operate an overall top-down mandate to come into the office, our office is regularly full as staff see the benefit of coming in and collaborating with colleagues.

This I believe is how it should be. Work where, when and how you and your team are most productive remembering that it has to work for both the business and the individual.

The Lloyd’s Underwriting Room closed for the summer months as Lloyd’s performed a refurb to the ground floor, and it’s great to see it open up again this week with that unique vibe returning.

A number of years ago I was hailed as a heretic after a market discussion about how to kick-start e-Trading. I suggested that we might consider sunsetting the ink underwriting stamps and try closing The Room for a few days. It’s great to see that the market hasn’t missed a beat whilst The Room was closed thanks to our move to digital trading, and the new boxes don’t even have drawers for the ink stamps!

Finally, New Tech.

Electronic Trading has started to find its level with the vast majority of business now bound electronically, paving the way I believe for a more efficient market. Complex negotiation is still done face to face as it should be, but we are finally seeing some momentum behind the drive toward a data driven market. The new MRCv3 and the Core Data Record being just the start, with Computable Contracts as our North Star.

BluePrint 2 is a bold, complex and long overdue upgrade to our core processing capability which will force everyone to modernise their legacy systems. This is no minor undertaking, but once there, we can hopefully move on from just talking about operating efficiencies, and start focusing on embracing the emerging AI driven technologies which will take us to new heights, with underwriters working in harmony with tech to know more and write with new insights.

40 years is a decent stint and it’s a privilege to be part of such a vibrant marketplace which never stands still, constantly innovating and evolving for our clients.

JSE 21/9/23