U.K. insurance market must modernize, Lloyd’s CEO says

London market businesses must continue to modernize and improve customer service levels, Lloyds CEO Richard Ward recently told a meeting of senior market figures.
In a speech at the London Insurance Day Summit, Ward said that modernization was vital to the future of the London market.
It is time that we in the London market accept that the drive for efficiency is not something that is being done to us it is something that has to be done by us, Ward said.
It is extraordinary how industry leaders who spend their day spotting and taking advantage of business opportunities and developing innovative insurance solutions seem to be unable to grasp the importance of improving the level of service to their customers.
“In my mind its simple. Businesses which dont recognize this will be left behind.
Ward outlined key reasons why the market had to modernize, telling delegates the insurance market lagged behind the rest of the financial services sector in terms of efficiency. Customers nowadays expected more, he said.
Why is it that a bank wont contemplate doing a deal without the documentation being in place but we in the insurance industry are perfectly happy to do the opposite? he said. In the insurance sector, we are seeing the rise of increasingly sophisticated insurance buyers.
Customers have much more influence in purchasing decisions, they have a better understanding of risks and are demanding more clarity in the services they are buying.
Ward used contract certainty as an example of what the market can achieve when all firms work together. He observed the London market exceeded the target of 85% of all contracts being certain by the end of 2006.
He told the conference: Over the past year, the London market has demonstrated that it can change, but the pace of change is still far too slow.
Ward said the market needed to remove any obstacles that made brokers jump through unnecessary hoops basically anything that is an obstacle to business coming to London.
This includes Londons reliance on paper files, and a broker dealing with Lloyds non-fundamental accounting splits, he said.