LONDON, May 29 (Reuters) - The Lloyd's of London insurance
market said on Friday it is considering combining its physical
underwriting floor in the City of London with some online
elements.
Lloyd's shut its "underwriting room" in its London tower on
March 19 in response to the coronavirus pandemic and has said it
will not reopen before August, marking the first closure of
physical trading in the commercial insurance market's 330-year
history.
The closure of the underwriting floor, usually packed with
brokers and underwriters, meant the market went fully online for
the first time, potentially opening the way for its operations
to go digital on a more permanent basis.
Underwriters and brokers say the market, which employs
nearly 50,000 people, has run smoothly with greater use of
existing electronic systems and they are in no hurry to return
to the office.
Jennifer Rigby, Chief Operations Officer at Lloyd's, said in
a video posted on YouTube on May 28 that the market was planning
to experiment with combining the best features of the physical
underwriting room "with a virtual room that is available to
visit, no matter where in the world you are."
"This clearly has been fast-tracked."
The plan is in development as part of the market's Future at
Lloyd's programme to shift to electronic exchanges, though
Lloyd's has previously said there would always be a place for a
physical underwriting floor.
Lloyd's already uses virtual reality headsets to show
brokers overseas how the market operates, a Lloyd's spokesman
said.
A more detailed update on Lloyd's' future will be issued in
July, Lloyd's said in a progress report on Friday.
“The insurance industry has proved it’s perfectly capable of
supporting clients remotely with a near to normal service," said
Jon Turner, CEO of broker Gallagher's specialty division.
"A packed trading floor feels like a distant memory."
(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn. Editing by Jane Merriman)