Fee and commission income (1999):

Fee and commission income (1999):
£12.6m

Pre-tax profit (1999):
£1.9m

Head office:
1 Great Tower Street
London
EC3R 5AH
Tel: 020 7407 7144
Fax: 020 7827 9312
email:

website: www.windsor.co.uk

Major shareholders:
Abtrust Fund Managers, DH Low, Invesco

Chief officer:
David Low

Biography:
David Low has more than 35 years' experience in the insurance market. He built Regis Low, a Lloyd's insurance broking company, into an operation with a turnover of £25m, which he later sold to Steel Burrill Jones for £34m. After an absence of three years from the industry, he acquired a 10% holding in Windsor and joined the main board in July 1996 as chairman. He assumed the combined role of chairman and chief executive in January 1997.

Company history:
Windsor is a long-established

Lloyd's insurance broker which wrote commercial and marine insurance at the beginning of the century. The recent renaissance in the company's fortunes dates from the appointment of David Low as chief executive in 1996.

A root-and-branch restructuring of the group followed and has led to the creation of an independent broker, focused on a number of specialist markets and comprising five principal operating divisions.

These are: professional indemnity, sport, commercial, London market and financial services.

This diversity has meant that, despite the difficult trading conditions that have characterised the insurance market in recent years, Windsor has been successful in both developing business and improving profitability year-on-year. Such diversity also encourages valuable cross referrals and this is becoming an increasingly important feature of the group's development.

In recent years the company has been able to invest heavily in information technology, enabling the group to cut costs while delivering an improved service to its clients. It will shortly offer a fully interactive online capability.

A team of dedicated internet professionals has been recruited to develop the technology platform that will support the company's ecommerce activities, and the company believes it is well positioned to exploit the opportunities that the internet offers.

Main lines of business:
Professional indemnity, fine art and antiques, sport, financial services, aviation and commercial

Number of UK branches:
Four

Number of employees (average for 1999):
176

Greatest technological advance:
Windsor will be launching its first internet products on its fully interactive website during the course of 2000. The site, www.insurethelot.com, aims to create a virtual portal aggregating ASP's and offering a wide ranging portfolio of interactive products to the company's direct clients, brokers and affinity groups.

It has assembled a highly skilled team to develop its ecommerce systems, whose enabling technologies will be readily expandable and transportable to third parties. In the medium term, the company expects its ecommerce activities to add significantly to its turnover and make a contribution to profitability.