Pandemic to transform Lloyd's into 21st-century marketplace

Lloyd's CEO John Neal said that the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated Lloyd's plans to transform its iconic headquarters in the City of London into a workplace for the future.

He was speaking at a virtual reinsurance renewal season fireside chats hosted by Aon reinsurance solutions global chairman Dominic Christian.

"The Lloyd's building is almost 35 years old, so how can it be the right environment for the market to operate? For the first time, we have both a virtual capability and a real capability operating simultaneously at Lloyd's. 

"We have also set some ideas on the table to metaphorically rip up the underwriting room and decide what it should look like in the 21st century and what the marketplace should look like in the 21st century," he said. In June this year, Lloyd's fast-tracked its plans to experiment with building elements of a virtual room as a response to the pandemic.

Mr Neal had previously announced that the virtual underwriting room would be an online environment that "will combine the best features of 1 Lime Street with digital technology to create efficient, smart and collaborative ways of doing business".

This means that brokers and underwriters would be able to hold virtual meetings in private at the new digital booths and there will be a help desk on the ground floor of the building to help people struggling with the new digital system.

During the fireside chat, Mr Neal also added that the 'transformation' Lloyd's and the industry were going through was about reducing the cost of doing business with the ultimate objective of reducing the cost of the product. "I have been really clear when I have been on calls with the investment community, that (the cost reduction) is not a gift to margin; it has got to be a gift to the cost of the product," he said.  

Source: Asia Insurance Review

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