Lloyd’s releases new images of refurbished underwriting room

Lloyd’s of London has released new pictures of its renovated underwriting room after the space reopened following two months of closure.

The underwriting room was shut by the marketplace in July in order for it to carry out refurbishment works, with the ground floor as well as galleries one and two being sealed off.

It reopened earlier this week (18 September 2023) for face-to-face trading, with Lloyd’s welcoming 13 additional managing agents to the ground floor of the room as part of the work.

Pictures sent to Insurance Times from Lloyd’s showed the underwriting room looking lively as insurers and brokers returned to carry out their duties in person.

Speaking about firms returning to the underwriting room, Lloyd’s chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown said: “Lloyd’s has always provided a place for brokers and underwriters to convene and collaborate to underwrite the world’s risks.

“In this new chapter for the underwriting room, we have not lost sight of our historical roots or our place in time and space. This is merely the next iteration of our market’s journey to underwrite the world’s risks.”

Handshake

While the underwriting room has had digital enhancements made to it as well, Carnegie-Brown stressed that it would not replace face-to-face contact.

Prior to the closure at the start of July, the London and International Insurance Brokers Association (Liiba) claimed in a report that underwriters had reduced their time at the box to only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

And as a result, the report, which was published earlier this year (13 June 2023), stated that the willingness of underwriters to trade from the underwriting room had become a “point of contention for young brokers”.

It said that out of more than 50 brokers across four workshops, some 97% said they wanted their working life to comprise of at least 50% face-to-face trading with underwriters.

“This space, the way we work, represents a handshake between the time-tested models of the past and the brave possibilities of the future,” Carnegie-Brown said.

“[This includes] a thoughtful integration of old and new to blend digital transactions with human interactions, artificial intelligence with emotional intelligence and machine learning with learned experience.”