2006 has been the best year yet for London Market reform, Stephen Riley, chairman of the International Underwriting Association, told insurance professionals at the annual Xchanging conference in Brighton.
Reviewing efforts to streamline the market's business processes he admitted that progress had often been slow. Overambitious projects, market inertia and the inherent handicap of competing and sometimes divergent interests have all held back the reform agenda.
“Back in 1999 London's business processes were described as archaic, baffling and cumbersome,” he said. “It was a good year for metaphors and there was much talk of replacing old ‘Victorian pipe work' and changing the ‘Alice in Wonderland logic' of using several different systems. We expected some fast, early successes by ‘picking the low-hanging fruit'.
“Well, of course, the low-hanging fruit turned out to be a little bit higher than we thought, but although the situation is still far from perfect, it has undoubtedly improved. We introduced a market slip which has been a major achievement in terms of market standardisation and we now have more than 90% of contracts demonstrating terms clearly agreed before coverage starts.
“Improvements are also underway to utilise much more extensively an electronic repository for more efficient processing of premiums and claims transactions. And overall London has strengthened its reputation as a location in which international insurance and reinsurance business can be effectively conducted.”
