Property and casualty insurance companies that are operating outside the Lloyd’s of London market in the United Kingdom have brought in the equivalent of approximately 75 percent of the income of their more high-profile competitors, which is a notably larger amount than had been previously predicted.
According to the first comprehensive survey of the sales of members of the International Underwriting Association (IUA), the insurers, known as the London company market, generated $26.6 billion (16.4 billion pounds) in gross premium income last year. On the other hand, last year, Lloyd’s of London generated $36.6 billion (22.6 billion pounds) in its gross written premiums.
Attempting to calculate the size of the market operating outside Lloyd’s has been impeded in the past by the fact that many of the participants in that market are multinational insurance companies that are unwilling to reveal how much of their business had been written in the U.K.
Chairman of the IUA, Stephen Riley, said that the survey indicated that the insurance market outside of Lloyd’s was “substantially bigger than previously stated.”
The London companies market is comprised of insurers and reinsurers from the U.K. and multinationals that have selected not to join the Lloyd’s market, which has been in operation for 323 years and is among the most high-profile insurance centers in the world.
In order to take part in the Lloyd’s market, insurers must agree to abide by its regulations and pay into its central fund, which provides emergency financial backup to individual members who receive claims that they will be unable to pay.