Culture survey following harassment report findings to be discussed next week

Lloyd’s of London chief executive John Neal said he was “devastated” by the results of the report into sexual misconduct against women at the market.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said that following the initial report on Bloomberg, “we thought there were signs that it was a reality”.

Lloyd’s launched a ‘culture’ survey in May open to all 45,000 people working in the market, as well as the Lloyd’s staff.

Those results will be discussed next week, Neal added. 

Among the proposals to tackle harassment, are immediate suspension of staff pending investigation of allegations.

“We’ll be talking about two or three core actions that we think can deal with gender equality in our market place and deal with some of the behavioural issues that are being discussed,” Neal told the BBC.

Neal was speaking on the same day that the 331-year-old institution reported profits of £2.3bn, despite a deterioration in underwriting performance

Lloyd’s combined ratio worsened to 98.8% (2018 H1: 95.5%), despite strong efforts to boost underwriting performance.