Lloyd’s chair Roxburgh calls for innovation to 'strengthen and extend' market's position

By Ryan Hewlett

June 18 - (The Insurer) - Charles Roxburgh has outlined his vision to "strengthen and extend" Lloyd's position as the “preeminent global marketplace” for risk, but the newly installed chair cautioned that top-line growth was not his central focus in the near term.

Speaking at the Financial Times’ Global Insurance Summit in London on Wednesday, Roxburgh was bullish on the global growth opportunities for Lloyd’s but said it was critical the Corporation continues to improve its proposition for underwriting businesses, brokers and external stakeholders.

“We need to constantly innovate to make sure that Lloyd’s is seen as the marketplace that you come to,” he told delegates at the conference.

Roxburgh, who was confirmed as the successor to Bruce Carnegie-Brown in September last year, formally assumed the role of Lloyd’s chair on May 1.

The former senior British civil servant and McKinsey alumnus said his vision to strengthen Lloyd's will be measured by a “series of tests”.

These include ensuring Lloyd's continues to attract large buyers of specialty coverage, attracts brokers as a “critical source” of capacity and skill, attracts the best underwriters and is a marketplace that has “high standards” of conduct and performance.

“If we do all that, then we will continue to be the world's preeminent marketplace for risk, and I hope to strengthen and extend that leadership position,” he said.

Roxburgh said that newly installed Lloyd's CEO Patrick Tiernan shared his view. “You have complete unanimity at the top of market, which is useful,” he said.

Commenting on the current period of heightened geopolitical risk and volatility, he welcomed calls from G7 leaders for a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East and noted that it remained crucial for Lloyd’s to remain vigilant of exposures.

“We have a very important, broad oversight of the market to make sure that we understand the exposures and the potentially tail risk scenarios, and we model those carefully too,” he said.

“This is what Lloyd's does. We're there to provide protection against extreme risks and uncertainty, but obviously, as citizens of the world, we're hopeful that this whole escalation begins to come down.”

TOP-LINE GROWTH NOT THE CORE OBJECTIVE

Former CEO John Neal previously set an ambitious target for Lloyd’s to reach $100 billion in gross written premium. Speaking to The Insurer late last year, Neal said top-line growth would be fuelled by an increasingly buoyant insurance market, and Lloyd’s ability to to attract big names from across the insurance world to One Lime Street.

But Roxburgh said top-line growth was not his central focus for Lloyd’s in the short to medium term.

“Top-line growth is the outcome of a good strategy, not the objective of a strategy. We will concentrate on getting the fundamentals right around serving our customers well, improving operational efficiency, innovating (and) ensuring we have a good return on capital for our investors. If we do all that, we will grow,” he said.

He noted a degree of market softening with global rates coming off after a couple of years of “very strong” performance.

“I've been out in the market talking to agents and underwriters about the state of the market, the message I hear quite consistently is there is a challenging market, but that rates are continuing to be adequate in the market,” he said.