The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) have launched a consultation proposing measures to boost diversity and inclusion to support healthy work cultures, reduce groupthink and unlock talent.

Around a third of 2021 business plans being submitted to Lloyd’s at this stage in the planning season are unrealistic in terms of growth or profitability expectations, CEO John Neal has said.

Speaking at a press conference after Lloyd’s H1 results today, the executive said no business plans had yet been approved at this point in the year, with the first of four “waves” of plans now being assessed.

An early assessment shows there is still a misalignment of expectations between Lloyd’s and some syndicates.

There is a percentage of plans Lloyd’s feels comfortable with, and a further proportion where “we feel we will get to where we want to be in terms of premium expectation or performance”, Neal said.

These two cohorts and the light-touch syndicates – which get automatic plan approval – account for around two-thirds of the market, the CEO continued.

“About a third of the market we would say we don’t see a clear path yet to plans which are logical, realistic and achievable,” Neal said.

“I am not discouraged by that, it’s where we would hope to be, but there’s lots of conversations to be had.”

The CEO said Lloyd’s would grow in the “high single digits” for next year, with around £12bn-£13bn ($15.6bn-$16.7bn) of new business set to be approved and new syndicates set to join the platform.

“Two years ago we were talking about £7bn of new business,” Neal added.

“I think we are getting the balance right for giving the flexibility for business growth… I think that is pretty significant growth for 2021.”

The CEO’s comments came after a set of Lloyd’s H1 results which were battered by £2.4bn of Covid-19 claims but showed significant improvement in the underlying underwriting performance of the market, with the attritional loss ratio declining 7.1 percentage points year on year to 52.6%.

That improvement was mainly driven by the past three years of remediation efforts, Neal said, without giving further detail. Improving rates gave a further tailwind, while Lloyd’s also booked a small amount of benefit from reduced loss frequency from certain lines as a result of Covid-19.

The CEO added: “We are near to where we would hope to be on an underlying basis. We expect to see further improvement through 2021 as the market works on delivering plans which are logical, realistic and achievable.”

Make no mistake, the sudden news that performance management director Jon Hancock is leaving Lloyd’s will send ripples across the London market.

He’s the man who stopped the rot and set the wheels in motion for a more profitable Lloyd’s. At a time when the future for 1 Lime Street looked bleak, he demonstrated that a firm hand and a risk-based approach to regulation could start to rectify the mistakes of the past, albeit slowly.

Lloyd’s had suffered from a crisis of confidence – even John Neal acknowledged when he arrived as CEO that the marketplace had lost its mojo. Restoring positivity in the market has been a big win for the Corporation in recent times, and Hancock’s role across performance and transformation was an important driver of that renewed confidence.

It goes without saying that his exit is a major blow for Lloyd’s, at a time when momentum around performance and strategy was just starting to gain pace.

Lloyd’s is keen to publicly show that there are no hard feelings. The transition will be flexible to suit both parties, they have said. There will be no cliff edge.

Both Neal and Hancock have stressed that this separation is nothing to do with differences of professional opinion – nevertheless market tongues will still wag on whether this departure is really to do with the fact that Hancock’s more measured view of how to implement change was at odds with Neal’s ambition to spark a big bang moment for Lloyd’s.

Departing before he has done four years in the role – and in a critical year for the Lloyd’s transformation work – certainly suggests there is more behind the move than just itchy feet.

When we spoke to him, Hancock stressed a desire to return to the commercial side of insurance, to be challenged in a way that only P&L business accountability can do.

This only works to emphasise a wider challenge that Lloyd’s faces in retaining and keeping the best talent. The best staff are reluctant to work at regulators long term.

Talent retention and turnover of staff has historically been a big issue within the Corporation, even if recently improved sentiment around Lloyd’s puts it in a much better position to recruit a highly credible successor.

The next question for the Corporation is who wants to take on arguably one of the toughest jobs in the global (re)insurance market.

Few individuals impact the performance of such a wide swathe of the market. The performance management director has a remarkable level of influence on both market profitability and pricing dynamics.

For the Corporation, performance is a key pillar of the strategy and it cannot afford to falter now that gains are starting to be made – and particularly with another calendar-year underwriting loss most likely in the pipeline.

Neal has stressed that the tone of performance management will continue with the new recruit, and the standards that Hancock has set will “100 percent” continue.

For the good of the market, this statement must prove to be more than just lip service.

But at the same time, there will not be complete continuity between the new regime and the old. The new performance management director will surely want to make his or her own mark in the role and will not want to live in Hancock’s shadow.

It will be a fine line to tread, while carrying a huge weight of responsibility.

As we have said before, the talent element is crucial to Lloyd’s ability to carry out the transformational change it is targeting.

With much more still to be done, the next performance management director will be one of the most important hires, if not the most important, Lloyd’s has made in recent times.

Anticipation of a harder market and the creation of an unrestricted light-touch cohort of syndicates has resulted in an increase in the aggregate Lloyd’s market stamp capacity of 6.4 percent to £33bn ($43.6bn) for 2020.  

The Insurance Insider’s annual stamp capacity survey found that overall the market is permitted to write £2bn more business for 2020 than this year.

The increase also marks a reversal of the contraction in stamp seen for 2019, when the Lloyd’s performance management directorate’s clampdown had led to the exiting of a number of classes and a tough stance on growth. Stamp for 2020 is also higher than that recorded in the 2018 survey.

Stamp capacity is the amount of sterling business a syndicate is authorised to write in a year of account. For the purposes of this survey, stamp capacity is calculated as gross of reinsurance and net of brokerage.

The measure is not a perfect indicator of the amount of business that syndicates intend to write, with carriers choosing to maintain different amounts of headroom at different points in the cycle. However, it remains a useful proxy for the business the Lloyd’s market expects to write in a given year.

This publication previously reported that planned premium growth for the market in 2020 would be a few points higher than the expected risk-adjusted rate increase of 5 percent.

The top 10 syndicates by stamp capacity also collectively grew their stamp by 8.9 percent to £14.1bn.

The largest syndicate in the market is now Beazley’s flagship Syndicate 2623, which has grown its stamp by 19 percent year on year to £1.9bn for 2020.

Syndicate 2623 is understood to be a light-touch syndicate, one of a group of 15 which are permitted unrestricted growth due to a good track record.

As previously reported, the light-touch cohort of syndicates grew planned premium by 14 percent for 2020, compared to 3 percent for the rest of the market.

Syndicate 2623 has replaced MS Amlin’s Syndicate 2001 as the largest syndicate in the market. In 2019, Syndicate 2001 had a stamp capacity of £1.85bn, but has reduced this by £250mn for 2020 to become the third-largest syndicate with a stamp of £1.6bn.

The de-emption comes after news that MS Amlin would exit nine business lines as part of remediation efforts.

Lloyd’s premium growth in 2020 will be heavily skewed towards better-performing syndicates as the Corporation seeks to incentivise the bottom quartile to improve performance and push the whole market towards more robust profitability. 

The outcome of the 2020 planning process is the strongest signal yet that the reality is matching the rhetoric on differentiated regulation of managing agents.

As this publication reported last week, the performance management directorate (PMD) has permitted a measured level of exposure growth for the coming year in the aggregate, with planned premiums a few points higher than the current projected risk-adjusted rate rise of 5 percent.

However, the 15 outperformers in the light-touch cohort – which gain automatic plan approval – will grow significantly more than the rest of the market.

Slides used by the PMD in the presentation show that the light-touch cohort will book 14 percent growth in 2020 planned premium, compared to just 3 percent for the rest of the market.

More than three quarters of light-touch growth will also come from increased exposure, while the rest of the market will actually reduce their exposure by 26 percent and achieve their premium growth via rate increase.

The rest of the market includes the high-touch cohort, which holds around 20 syndicates and accounts for around 45 percent of market premium. It is made up of both underperforming syndicates and those which are deemed material to the market – either due to their size or cat exposure.

The planned premium projections allay fears PMD would prevent syndicates from capitalising on rate momentum after taking a hardline stance last year.

However, it’s clear that only those who tick all the boxes on underwriting and operational excellence, including success against long-term performance standards, can fully embrace the current growth opportunities.

The long-term success of differentiated oversight will depend on how the PMD decides to triage syndicates, and too crude a methodology could risk choking smaller syndicates of the growth they need to underwrite profitably, given the structural expense issues at Lloyd’s. It will also depend upon the light-touch syndicates retaining their discipline now that they are operating with reduced oversight.

Lloyd’s market expense ratio is expected to see a 0.4 percentage point improvement to 38.5 percent for 2020 as a decline in acquisition costs is partially offset by a rise in admin costs. 

Slides from a Lloyd’s market presentation and seen by The Insurance Insider show that the projected acquisition cost ratio will fall 0.7 points to 25.9 percent for 2020, while the admin cost ratio will tick up by 0.2 points to 12.5 percent.  The two components add up to a rounded 38.5 percent, according to the Lloyd’s slide, down from a forecast 38.9 percent for 2019.  

The lower acquisition cost ratio is thought to be due to a changing business mix at Lloyd’s.  

Lloyd’s said in the slide deck that “no real progress” had been made on expense ratios, with actual expenses in sterling continuing to rise.  

The 38.5 percent total expense ratio is a projection based on 2020 business plans and could end up being higher or lower come the end that year. The forecast final expense ratio for 2019 is expected to be 0.3 points lower than that projected in 2019 business plans.  

The projected 2020 expense ratio is also 1.8 points lower than that booked in 2018.  

Performance management director Jon Hancock has previously made clear that 2020 business plans would not be approved without an improvement in the expense ratio year on year. 

He has previously told this publication that drive to reduce expenses was a “principle not a rule” and the performance management directorate would not enforce set targets on expense ratio reduction, as every syndicate is different.  

He noted that there were some syndicates in Lloyd’s which had “super competitive” expense ratios and it would be foolish to expect them to cut those even further. 

Research into admin costs at syndicate level has also found that there is no correlation between the size of a syndicate and its admin expense ratio, contrary to the popular belief that administrative costs decline as a syndicate grows.

Expense reduction is a major focus of the Future at Lloyd’s strategy. CEO John Neal has previously said Lloyd’s was targeting a 25-30 percent expense ratio within five years via digitisation, automation, simplification of processes and end-to-end processing at Lloyd’s.  

Lloyd’s market planned premium growth for 2020 will be a few points higher than the market-average risk-adjusted rate increase of 5 percent, The Insurance Insider understands.  

Sources who attended a market presentation today led by Lloyd’s performance management director Jon Hancock and CFO Burkhard Keese told this publication that all classes of business, with the exception of accident and health and personal accident, are expected to have rate rises in 2020.

The market growth expectations come after a planning process which subjected syndicates to the same level of remedial rigour as last year, with Lloyd’s maintaining its “improve or remove” stance on planning. Many underwriters had been concerned that the Corporation’s firm stance on growth would prevent them from taking advantage of the improving rate environment in London.

It was suggested that the improvement in rate would also help drive a better market performance in 2020. The planned combined ratio in 2020 is said to be a few percentage points lower than the plan for 2019, driven predominantly by the loss ratio.

All syndicate business plans are now complete, with the official coming-into-line deadline on 3 December, and during the planning process Lloyd’s continued with its differentiated approach on oversight.

It is understood that the “light-touch” cohort of 15 syndicates – who are granted automatic business plan approval as a result of their good track record – will grow significantly more than the market average in 2020. This growth will predominately be through exposure growth in existing classes but some have chosen to enter new lines of business.

Conversely, the “high-touch” cohort of around 20 syndicates, which represent 45 percent of market premium, will grow less than risk-adjusted rate.

It is understood that a syndicate can also be designated high-touch because of its materiality to the market due to size or cat exposure – it is not necessarily an indication of poor performance.

There is also differentiation between the level of oversight within that high-touch cohort, but generally it requires more intervention and communication with the performance management directorate (PMD) on areas such as reserves and results.

The Decile 10 process continues and planned premium for the lowest-performing decile of business will reduce by a few hundred million pounds, sources said. The combined ratio for Decile 10 business will also improve by 3 points year on year.

Meanwhile, planned premium for deciles 1 and 2 will grow by several hundred million pounds. The middling deciles will grow in line with rate.

As previously reported, business plans could only gain approval with a reduction in expense ratio, and this publication understands the overall planned expense ratio for 2020 is 0.5 percentage points lower than that planned for 2019.

This is due to lower acquisition costs due to a changing business mix. The admin ratio is also improving but to a lesser extent than last year.

In terms of capital, the Lloyd’s market will hold more capital for 2020 plans than 2019, due to the additional premium which will come into the market. However, it is understood that as a proportion of premium, the amount of capital held is lower, due to a higher level of profit written into the plans.

It is also understood that there were fewer capital loadings this year than last.

Lloyd’s PMD had committed to an improved business-planning process this year, including a four-week turnaround for those plans on message. This planning season 75 percent of plans were put through within that timeframe.

The market also asked for more feedback in the process, and Lloyd’s provided it on 92 percent of plans within 10 working days. Lloyd’s also provided immediate feedback after the capital and planning group meeting, with 85 percent of plans responded to within 24 hours.

Sources said the PMD was pleased with this improved process compared to last year but still had more work to do on this front.

After the closure of three Lloyd’s syndicates since the start of the month – Vibe 5678, Pioneer 1980, and Acappella 2014 – there are plenty of reasons to feel bearish about smaller Lloyd’s players.  

These three syndicates suffered from a toxic cocktail of access-to-business problems reflecting poor competitive positioning, soft market growth and cost issues brought to bear by Lloyd’s expenses, their lack of scale and the Corporation’s cap on growth.

As if that wasn’t enough, there are structural shifts that make the future look bleak for small players: the move towards passive following capacity and the pending changes to the Lloyd’s lead-follow structure.  

With all of this bearing down on them, it is not surprising that the three syndicates suffered from persistently weak underwriting performance, and that they were not perceived by capital providers as a good short- or long-term bet. 

Some believe we are witnessing the dying days of small syndicates.  

But despite the closure of these three players, other syndicates faced similar challenges and yet managed to secure capital for another year.

Dale Underwriting Partners kept ProAssurance on board with a reduced line, and was able to add three new trade capital backers.

Probitas secured capital backing for 20 percent pre-emption, while Apollo, Agora, Verto and DTW 1991 were finalising their Funds at Lloyd’s as of last week.

Securing capital for 2020, of course, does not mean all those structural pressures and tough market conditions vanish overnight. It is, however, a sign that the situation is more nuanced than the “big is beautiful” cheerleaders may suggest. 

Perhaps it is not impossible for small syndicates to survive. There are other syndicates out there that do good business without the advantages that scale brings, with MAP, Ark and Atrium all consistently among the best performers in Lloyd’s.  

On the flip-side, there are larger businesses for whom it has not all been plain sailing.  

MS Amlin was in September obliged to shut down nine lines of business as part of a fresh round of remediation work. The firm’s Lloyd’s syndicate has not made an underwriting profit since 2015.

Similarly, Axa XL’s flagship Syndicate 2003, which wrote $3bn in gross premium in 2018, booked a loss $302mn last year – larger than the prior year’s loss of $259.2mn – and reported a combined ratio of 115.6 percent. 

The challenges faced by these businesses show that scale isn’t everything. 

A loss ratio problem is a loss ratio problem if you wrote £250mn or £2.5bn. 

And conversely, a business with good risk selection, intelligent portfolio construction and well designed outwards protections, should be able to continue to outperform on the loss ratio. 

It may be harder than it used to be and it may continue to get harder. But it’s just possible that the best entrepreneurial businesses will continue to thrive at Lloyd’s. 

In Brief

IG offers 5% rate rise as it switches to two-year deal

The International Group has offered 5 percent increases on the key layers of its programme, as it seeks to move the entire $3bn open market placement to a two-year deal, The Insurance Insider revealed.  

The IG has also notified the market that it expects the Golden Ray claim to come in as low as $115mn, while the Maersk Honam also experienced sizeable loss development within the most recent policy period. Against the backdrop of a turning marine market, and with fears of creep on the Golden Ray, (re)insurers have given a lukewarm reception to the deal, which incepts on 20 February 2020, particularly given the attempt to lock down two years of capacity. 

Swiss Re reports ‘strong’ corporate solutions pricing momentum

Swiss Re said pricing momentum in its corporate solutions unit  remains strong, with the greatest growth in loss-affected property lines, after the division achieved 10 percent rate growth in the year to date. 

In an investor presentation the reinsurer said it has cut $60mn of operating costs from its corporate solutions unit so far this year as it restructures the division to achieve a combined ratio to 98 percent by 2021, down from 110 percent in 2018. It is focusing on “de-commoditising” the corporate solutions business it writes, while growing its exposure in large property transactions, credit and surety, and accident and health. In the presentation Swiss Re also said it expects a casualty reinsurance combined ratio of 97 percent this year, down 1 point year on year, after cutting back in US liability and US commercial motor. 

Munich Re exposed to Chile riot claims through Suramericana treaty

Munich Re is among reinsurers facing riot losses in Chile due to a property treaty it leads for one of Latin America’s largest insurers, The Insurance Insider reported. 

Suramericana is facing at least $150mn in claims from civil unrest in Chile over the past six weeks, the company has confirmed. A representative from Suramericana said the company is continuing to monitor the situation. Munich Re owns an 18.9 percent stake in Suramericana, with the rest of the equity held by Colombian financial services business Grupo Sura. 

DTW Syndicate 1991 inches closer to 2020 capital deal

DTW Syndicate 1991 is in the final stages of securing capital for the 2020 underwriting year with around a week to go until the coming-into-line deadline, The Insurance Insider reported. 

Sources told this publication the Coverys-managed syndicate had secured business plan approval from Lloyd’s with a circa 10 percent reduction in top line, and the details are now being finalised on the capital arrangements after a challenging renewal. In a statement, Coverys confirmed DTW 1991 was in the process of finalising its 2020 underwriting capacity arrangements ahead of the 29 November deadline and said it is “grateful for the support of our capital providers and are confident in delivering on the syndicate’s 2020 plan”. 

CAC Specialty launches environmental liability group

Cobbs Allen arm CAC Specialty has appointed a trio of brokers and established an environmental liability division.  

The operation will be led by Gregory Schilz who joins the business from Marsh JLT’s San Francisco office, where he was an executive vice president. Grant Nichols and Brian Lu also join from Marsh JLT and become vice presidents at the new division. Nichols is based in Miami while Lu works from New York. 

Market participants who refuse to amend inappropriate behaviour must be removed from their roles even if they bring in large profits, the Lloyd’s CEO has said.

John Neal said at the Insider Progress event yesterday: “I don’t think there are ‘rainmakers’. The organisation is bigger than the individual.

“If they are not behaving and they cannot change, they should go.”

Neal’s comments came after Financial Conduct Authority CEO Andrew Bailey said in September that he had seen instances within the financial sector where management had quashed complaints about “loose cannon” individuals because of the profit they brought into businesses.

It also comes after AJ Gallagher UK CEO Simon Matson was forced to issue a public apology after a court case revealed him and commercial director Vyvienne Wade had used racist and abusive language about departing staff. Both currently remain in post.

The Lloyd’s culture study revealed that just over a fifth of respondents had seen people in their businesses turn a blind eye to inappropriate behaviour, and sparked a programme of measures from the Corporation that aim to create an inclusive culture within the market.

Neal noted that despite the figures in the survey and Lloyd’s messaging on diversity and inclusion (D&I) since then, some individuals were not yet on board with the initiative.

“I am genuinely worried that people still don’t get it,” Neal said.

“They say, ‘it’s not as bad as you think’. I don’t care how bad it is, it’s not a Richter scale of behaviour.”

Neal pointed out that the average age of the industry had been rising over the past two years, rather than falling, as efforts faltered to recruit the next generation.

Younger people do not consider a career in insurance to be fulfilling and, according to the executive, improving the culture was a key part of attracting in millennial staff.

Neal said that when the Corporation launched next year’s culture survey in early summer, he wanted it to attract substantially more responses than the 6,000 it received this year.

The CEO detailed Lloyd’s actions on culture and inclusivity so far, explaining that the Corporation was in the midst of checking D&I policies within each Lloyd’s business, and ensuring each had the ambition to change.

Lloyd’s has also set up an advisory group chaired by Fiona Luck, non-executive director for talent and culture. This board will include independent experts who will hold the Corporation to account on D&I and report each year on the market’s progress in Lloyd’s annual report.

The Lloyd’s market made a £2bn ($2.8bn) pre-tax loss in 2017 as £4.5bn of major claims took their toll.

The market made its first underwriting loss in six years, as the Lloyd’s combined ratio worsened by 16.1 percentage points to 114.0 percent. Lloyd’s plunged into the red after making a £2.1bn pre-tax profit a year earlier.

Lloyd’s had an underwriting loss of £3.4bn in 2017, compared to a £468mn underwriting profit the year before.

Gross written premiums increased by 12.3 percent to £33.6bn, driven by new products such as cyber cover and expansion in the US market.

The £4.5bn major claims tally more than doubled from 2016, as hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria battered the 332 year old market.

Gross of reinsurance, Lime Street paid out £18.3bn in claims over the year.

Along with major cat claims, the market also had to contend with a rise in non-cat losses.

According to the Lloyd’s annual report, published today, the underlying accident year combined ratio, excluding major claims, deteriorated by 4.5 percentage points to 98.4 percent.

The rise in non-cat claims was linked to underlying claims inflation, an erosion in deductibles and pricing weakness.

Lloyd’s chairman Bruce Carnegie Brown said in a statement today: “After a number of relatively benign catastrophe years, the second half of 2017 demonstrated the precarious nature of the world in which we live.”

Carnegie Brown said the market losses were “not a surprise”.

“Last year it was clear that the benign claims environment was masking the impact of tough trading conditions and so it has proved,” he said.

Prior-year releases were £706mn in 2017, compared to £1.15bn in 2016. That improved the combined ratio by 2.9 points compared with a 5.1 point uplift from reserve releases the year earlier.

Lloyd’s made an improved investment return of £1.8bn, compared to £1.3bn in 2016.

Lloyd’s CEO Inga Beale said the market faced two challenges: modernisation and improving diversity.

Beale called on the market to “speed up the adoption of the market’s modernisation programme, which will digitise processes, reduce unsustainable expense ratios, and make Lloyd’s more attractive to do business with”.

She continued: “We need to attract the best talent from around the world if we are to continue to innovate and provide customers with the products they need in today’s fast-changing risk landscape. That is why we are working hard on closing the Corporation’s gender pay gap.”