London market wrote record £23bn in 2014
The overall premium total for the London company market in 2014 was £22.9 billion, according to a new report by the International Underwriting Association (IUA).
Gross premium written in London totalled £15.855 billion while a further £7.079 billion was identified as written in other locations but overseen by London operations.
The London Company Market Statistics Report sees data submissions from around 60 firms and business.
“Each company is, of course, unique and will have its own experiences of the business in the London Market, but we can now detect some longer term evidence for trends that have been keenly debated,” said Dave Matcham, chief executive of the IUA.
“It is clear that a growing level of business is being written independently in local markets. Direct and facultative placements are becoming more dominant compared to treaty business. Premium changes are not uniform across different business classes and there are some interesting variations in the significance of emerging markets.
“Our report also discusses influencing factors such as changing company structures, increased interest in delegated authorities and the relationship between the company market and Lloyd’s.”
This year’s report shows that in 2014 the split of London business between direct/facultative and treaty placements was 77 percent to 23 percent. For premium written outside the city but overseen by London operations the division was 81 percent to 19 percent.
The spread of premium income between different classes remains relatively stable, according to the data, although there have been contrasting experiences across the company market. Property, liability, professional lines and especially marine all saw income rise while total premiums fell for construction, aviation and motor.
Geographically, for business written in London, the UK and Ireland remains the dominant source of income with a 52 percent share of the total. For business controlled by London operations but written in other offices, continental Europe has become the largest income provider (34 percent) overtaking regional UK and Ireland offices (33 percent).
Combining the IUA’s total company market income figure of £22.9 billion with Lloyd’s of London’s gross written premium figure of £25.3 billion gives an overall total for the London Market of £48.2 billion.
