Praise and Honors for Lloyd’s Retiring Franchise Director Rolfe Tolle

Tributes have poured in from across the Lloyd’s market to Rolf Tolle, who, as Lloyd’s first Franchise Performance Director, is being hailed as “one of the main architects of the market’s resurgence as a leading force in the international insurance industry,” as detailed in article on the Lloyd’s web site (www.lloyds.com).

“Lloyd’s has gone from strength to strength in recent years, thanks partly to Tolle’s work with the Franchise Performance Directorate (FPD). He established a system for improving underwriting and risk management standards across the market that has won plaudits from credit rating agencies. This has proved to be a powerful attraction to many companies now seeking membership of Lloyd’s.”

Stephen Catlin, Chief Executive of the Catlin Group, added: “Rolf has done a great job in bringing structure and discipline to the Lloyd’s market. The creation of the Franchise Board was an important milestone in Lloyd’s development and Rolf was the right person to serve as the first Franchise Performance Director.”

Tolle, who announced his retirement earlier this year, was honored with the Silver Medal for Services to Lloyd’s at a special dinner held on December 10th in Lloyd’s historic Adam Room. “The honor has been bestowed on only a handful of people since its creation in 1917,” the bulletin explained.

In presenting the award, Lloyd’s Chairman Lord Levene paid tribute to Tolle. “Rolf has played a crucial role in restoring Lloyd’s image and re-establishing its reputation as the world’s leading specialist insurance market over the last seven years,” he stated. “His focus on standards and underwriting discipline has helped ensure that the market has returned to financial strength and stability.”

The establishment of the Franchise Board, first announced in 2002, marked a radical departure from Lloyd’s previous governing statutes (See IJ web site – https://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/west/2002/09/30/coverstory/23511.htm ] As its first director, Tolle assumed a heavy responsibility. Lloyd’s indicated that his “legacy to the market is in quickly establishing the Franchise Performance Directorate as an integral part of the new fabric of the Lloyd’s market.”

Julian James, Chief Executive of Lockton Companies International, and former Lloyd’s Director of Worldwide Markets, stated that Tolle’s “contribution has been in defining a role for Lloyd’s in managing the market’s appetite for risk. He built the current regime and, in the process, won over many of the doubters.” He added: “The fact that 99.9 per cent of people in this market agree that he has done a good job is very rare praise.”

David Gittings, Chief Executive of the Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA), said: “Cometh the hour, cometh the man – Rolf Tolle. His contribution to reestablishing Lloyd’s reputation as a safe place in which to do business has been immense. The market and its capital backers have a great deal to thank him for.”

The bulletin indicated that when Tolle arrived at Lloyd’s in March 2003, “the FPD was nothing more than an idea on paper, laid out in the Chairman’s Strategy Group review to make Lloyd’s a modern marketplace that would attract capital providers and policyholders alike.

“But the workaholic German rose to the immense task of building the Directorate from scratch.” James, who worked with Tolle, added that he “found his commitment extraordinary and his work ethic unrelenting.”

Tom Bolt, who takes over from Tolle as head of the FPD on January 1st, also praised his predecessor’s accomplishments. “When you go right back to the beginning, Rolf had no tools and virtually no people. What he has built from a standing start is an immense achievement.”

Bolt’s ambition is to now build on Tolle’s success. “He did a lot of the heavy lifting in creating the FPD – now I get to steer it. My vision for the future of the Directorate is to apply more usefully what it is that Rolf set up with the tools he had at his disposal.”

Source: Lloyd’s of London

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