Wake up and Smell the Coffee at the new 'electronic' Lloyd's of London

Wake up and Smell the Coffee at a new ‘electronic’ Lloyd’s of London

Nobody would have thought that the stimulus for electronic placing at Lloyd’s of London, which prides itself on its ability to provide a better service for its global clients with ‘face-to-face’ negotiations, would be some ‘dodgy bats in China’! 

For thirty years electronic placing the London Insurance Market has been chasing a usable electronic system and for thirty years the traditionalists in the Lloyd’s market have fended off some very dubious, un-thought through solutions for screen placing of new policies and reinsurances. 

The pandemic and WFH decision by Lloyd’s to close down the underwriting floor, the first time ever, gave the developers of electronic placing systems the ‘shot gun start’ it had been wanting, nothing else was getting the market over excited previously. The London figures for increasing transactions are not easy to relate to the market as a whole but there has been an upsurge in use, 55% in one recent week. Like everything in our lives, which has been turned upside down by this virus and which has forced us to change our attitude to our normal lives, it will be interesting to see if when it is all over the Lloyd’s market returns to the ways it was always been and enjoyed, but with some of the easier policy transactions staying electronic, while concentrating on new business.

A bit worryingly during this time is the idea, backed by the US President, that like Lloyd’s broker Cuthbert Heath at the time of the California earthquake in 1906 all Lloyd’s policies should pay whatever the wordings. The President implies that Business Interruption claims should be honoured even though policies did not specifically mention pandemics. Lloyd's might be about to get a dose of the DT's!