Room Solutions has recorded an operating loss of £1m in its year-end results caused by the development of a new Lloyd's market product.

Company chairman Marcus Broome said the pilot of its market level initiatives (MLI) concept had hit company profits.

Broome said the product was designed to improve the efficiency of handling large volumes of insurance schedule data in the London market.

But, "take up of this product has been slow, affecting our results for the year," Broome said.

Room Solutions said it had strived to differentiate itself from other Lloyd's technology providers by developing and incorporating new products into the company ethos.

Consolidation in the insurance market had increased demand for more comprehensive products, it said, and in response it had invested "considerably" in its Solutions Strategy.

Despite this, Room recorded an operating loss of £1m in the year ended 30 June 2004, from a profit of £42,000 a year earlier.

In the year ended 30 June 2003 net cash flow was reported as £963,000.

A year later the figure tumbled to a deficit of £1.3m.

The company also recorded a loss on ordinary activities of more than £1m, from a profit of £93,700 in the previous year.

The company's wage bill came in at £4.97m, split between 114 employees at the company.

Gross profit, the company said, had shown a slight increase from £8.8m to £9m at the year end.