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LONDON MARINE | Opinion In association with Ed Broking
Patrick Jordan, Ed Broking, head of marine, says that the ability of the London market to respond to the huge personal and corporate challenges presented by the pandemic augurs well for the future of the historic hub of the international marine insurance market How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb’s REALLY got to want to change… Two years ago, we were all trotting merrily along doing our jobs in a fashion which was the product of 300 years of evolution. The dress code was largely original, and contracts were still bound using stamp, ink and scratch, meaning that they were using real live underwriting. The building that we used was iconic and considered central to the ability to transact. That said, there were indications that some ‘updating’ was occurring. On the small scale - ties in Lloyd’s had been made optional after one particularly hot summer, queues at boxes were longer as underwriting hours seemed to be more compressed, and one syndicate had shown thought leadership by putting a fridge stocked with soft drinks into the area where brokers waited. On the larger scale, - Lloyd’s was trying to enforce the uptake of electronic trading and was seeking to redefine what the underwriting process could encapsulate. Looking back, it has to be acknowledged that attention within the underwriting and broking community seemed sporadic at best. Then – in the form of a global pandemic – the very essence of our market was challenged. No longer could we see our clients face-to-face. Perhaps more importantly, no longer could we discuss the needs of our clients face-to-face.
SOOTHING OIL We couldn’t pour the soothing oil of a pleasant lunch or after work chat on the troubled waters of difficult negotiations. No social element remained, everything was distanced to handset, keyboard, mouse and screen. It appeared that the complicated in-person representations and negotiations which underpin the foundations of complex risk as it is placed in London would become so cumbersome that efficiency would depart, taking buyers along with it. Yet here we are, in 2022, still going. In an enhanced fashion. We’re blessed with an industry which requires no heavy manufacturing, has efficient electronic distribution lines, has been sufficiently regulated so as to ensure the product engenders trust within the general public and is still relevant to other businesses. Despite significant concerns to the contrary, the fact that The Marine Insurer | March 2022
The future is here we could no longer gather in crowds within rooms to perform our paid duties proved to be less essential than was always thought. Suddenly - almost overnight - the impact of advances in digital business practice since the turn of the century came into sharp focus. The ability to be mobile in work – indeed, to actually work consistently from home – was there for the majority of us. The systems in place to allow contract certainty meant the client could still obtain the same product via the same channels with the same confidence as before.
BEATING HEART
Systems. They are the beating heart and pulsing arteries of our existence in so many ways. Every industry and part of life has them and without them we all fall down. Our ability to continue to function properly owes so much to such things as electronic filing, data capture, digital clause libraries, password-protected sensitive information, slips and certificates templated and stored for ease of amendment and dispersion. Placing Platform Limited, TradEd, WhiteSpace, Cascade, Concur, PowerBI (and many other such names) are now all daily drivers. How fortunate we were not to have to start from scratch! How quickly we came to appreciate that some form of the future really had been seen by those who had devoted themselves to market digital interface structures. There’s another system which stood the test and made this world keep turning. I must add a personal thank you to each client, underwriter and colleague who answered when I called or responded when I emailed. The greater the complexity of any situation the more
