For the underwriters and brokers on the trading floors surrounding the vast atrium at the centre of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, business is good.
The centuries-old institution — a marketplace of more than 50 insurers and hundreds of brokers selling policies covering everything from cyber attacks to hurricanes — has shaken off Covid disruption and a run of costly years for natural catastrophes to deliver its best underwriting performance since 2007.
Efforts by management to help some of the market’s underperforming insurers improve have contributed, alongside rising insurance prices. September’s announcement of former senior Treasury official Sir Charles Roxburgh as its next chair was well received.
Roxburgh said on his appointment that the market offered “valuable protection to its customers and healthy financial returns to members and investors”.
But the positive news belies unease among senior market figures about changes at the top of Lloyd’s in the midst of long-running problems with a crucial IT project, according to multiple people who talked to the Financial Times.
Some are keen for Roxburgh to start as soon as possible to tackle the challenges, even ahead of his formal start date in May.
A key frustration has been “Blueprint II”, a project to replace the market’s fragmented, decades-old back office systems. The IT upgrade was first set out in 2019 and refined the following year, but there have been repeated delays. An announcement in June scrapped a planned October launch.