Am I alone in getting a little fed up with the various pronouncements about improving business efficiencies at Lloyd's? In last week's article, "Hurricanes push Lloyd's into loss"(News, 13 April), Lord Levene was at it again.
Instead of talking about "trunks of paper files" and so on, I'd like to see some more concrete proposals put forward. We don't want another Kinnect and let's face it, the £70m spent on that particular electronic white elephant would have made a difference to profits.
It's all very well for Mazars' Andrew Hubbard to talk about saving 1% of the £3,668m operating expenses, but what exactly is he suggesting?
Business process reform is already going on, and many of the insurers, like Hiscox, and brokers, like Aon, have top-of-the-range electronic trading platforms that are working well. Efficiencies are being made and costs are coming down. And in any case, getting away from such a terrible hurricane season with a loss of just over £100m was a terrific result.
It's easy to criticise the use of old-fashioned methods, but they have served the market well for 300 years and we need to think long and hard about introducing wholesale changes.
Michael McCarthy
Brighton
