The insurance industry must address serious financial, reputational, and behavioural challenges in the next 12 months in order to remain strong, according to Lloyd's director of worldwide markets, Julian James.
James has warned that despite the sector's current financial strength, it was in danger of undoing the progress it has made and drift back into the “financial intensive care ward”.
“We are now standing on a potentially firmer foundation,” James told delegates at the PCI Conference in Seattle. “But we put our future in grave danger if we stop here.
“As an industry, we will fail if we do not keep changing and adapting.”
He warned against the dangers of weak premium growth, falling rates in most non-catastrophe areas and rising industry surpluses.
The Lloyd's director insisted that the industry also needed to do a better job of explaining how a solvent insurance industry underpinned the world economy, and needed to start acting like an industry that was truly global.
“This is a critical time for our industry, and the impact of the decisions we make right now will last a long time,” he said.
