Lloyd’s must ‘redouble efforts’ to maintain global standing – New chair Roxburgh

Lloyd’s of London must “redouble efforts” to innovate its proposition to markets in pursuit of maintaining global relevance.

That was according to new Lloyd’s chair Sir Charles Roxburgh, who spoke during an opening keynote session at today’s (18 June 2025) Financial Times Live Global Insurance Summit. 

He explained: ”What I hear from talking to some of the world’s leading broker chief executives is that Lloyd’s is still special because of that ability to get really insightful, creative solutions to really difficult risks. They still come to Lloyd’s for those which, for me, is a real test. 

“Now, can [Lloyd’s] be complacent about that? Absolutely not. We have to redouble our efforts on how we innovate, how we use technology and how we attract talent. 

“All of those things are going to be critical to our efforts to maintain that creativity and that edge. But I’m very reassured, returning to the market after 30 years when I first worked in it, that that edge is still there.” 

Stated goals 

Despite global turmoil around trade wars, US market volatility and increasing geopolitical pressures, Roxburgh said that Lloyd’s was also committed to remaining “the pre-eminent global marketplace for risks” with the “global reach” that it enjoys. 

And, while noting a trend away from global economic integration to increasing protectionism, he said: ”The world economy has benefited from a degree of integration, but now there are different forces at work that may mean we have slightly less integration in some aspects of that world economy. 

“However, I don’t think that there’s a fundamental turn away from our ability to compete, so we will continue to be a major presence in Amercia, one of our most important markets, and we will continue to be a major presence in Europe and all our regions.

“I don’t want to see any sort of fall back from that.”

And even though Lloyd’s is seeing increasing competition from other insurance marketplaces around the globe, the Lloyd’s chair added: ”It’s good for the world insurance market to have competing, respectful marketplaces that force each other to raise their game. 

”It’s an intensively competitive global insurance market and I think that’s a good thing.”