London, UK September 29, 2006

An Overview of the Lloyd's of London Market: Key Business and Technology Issues

Modernisation efforts of this London institution will help reduce operational costs and keep Lloyd's above water.

Lloyd's of London is a hallmark of the London financial services industry, steeped in tradition and British history. Its uniqueness comes from being a market, not a single company, and it has all the hallmarks that one might expect of a marketplace. But this market also has a tremendous set of legacy business practices that make most insurers look like Google by comparison. In a new report, An Overview of the Lloyd's Market, Celent discusses Lloyd's business, history, operations, and current business challenges.

Of the challenges facing this 300-year-old institution, the toughest must be reducing some of the highest operational costs of any market. Technology can play a key role in reducing the inefficiencies in the business processes. Standards such as ACORD, and solution offerings in core policy administration and document management, will come to be part of the Lloyd's product mix in the future.

"Technology will play an important enabling role as the market modernises itself," says Catherine Stagg-Macey, senior analyst in Celent's Insurance group and author of the report. She goes on to comment that a walk around the Lloyd's building and its surroundings reinforces how paper-driven this marketplace is today. "This is a luddite trying to keep its head above water in the 21st century."

In addition to the business overview, this report addresses the role that technology can play in enabling the business. This report discusses how accessible, quality data supporting straight-through processing in a frictionless environment can reduce operational costs. Such use of technology will free up the business to focus on its core competencies of service and risk management.

The 21-page report contains two figures and three tables. A table of contents is available online.