Lloyd’s Market Association Marks 10 Year Anniversary

Speaking on the tenth anniversary of the incorporation of the Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA), its Chairman, Barnabas Hurst-Bannister, thanked managing agents for their support and pledged that the LMA will not cease in its mission to see the Lloyd’s market acknowledged as “the most respected and professional in the world.”

In the address at London’s Merchant Taylors’ Hall Hurst-Bannister reminded his listeners of the challenges that had to be overcome in bringing together a number of different organizations in 2001 to create the LMA as a truly representative organization for the Lloyd’s underwriting community.

“The LMA could hardly be a more representative voice,” he stated, as its “current board is made up of members who collectively represent over 50 percent of the market’s capacity. Does any other body come remotely near that? I suspect you know the answer, and how often have you heard the questions ‘What does the market think?’ and, more pertinently, ‘How do we know what the market thinks?’ The LMA has a pretty shrewd idea.”

Hurst-Bannister also paid tribute to the LMA’s former chairmen – Robert Hiscox, Stephen Catlin, Rob Childs, Dane Douetil, Andrew Kendrick and Paul Jardine – and thanked them for their selfless commitment to the market.

He highlighted the work of what he called “the real engine room of the LMA'” – the 90 committees and sub-committees populated by hundreds of market practitioners and members of the LMA’s own team of 32. “Nowhere is there a better or more understated example of how the LMA is quite simply the glue which makes our market stick together.”

In his concluding remarks Hurst-Bannister turned his attention towards the future of the LMA, stating: “The next ten years will see the LMA espousing ever-heightened standards of professionalism not least of all because, as the voice of Lloyd’s practitioners, we have a common interest not just in our members making appropriate profits, but also in enhancing the reputation of the London market. The insurance industry across the UK is not always accorded the greatest of respect. Within the specialist London market we will leave no stone unturned in the quest to make our own market, our subscription market, our brokered market, our innovative market the most respected and professional in the world.

“The principles that have underpinned the last ten years will guide us through the next ten, and those principles reflect the very essence of the Lloyd’s market – subscription; innovation; face-to-face negotiation; a love of risks which are new, difficult and large; dealing through brokers; the accessibility of underwriters; raising the profile of claims adjusting to the same level as that of underwriting; and a determination to modernize our processes in order to continue to be properly attractive to those brokers and their clients.”

Source: Lloyd’s Market Association

Topics Excess Surplus London Lloyd's