Lloyd’s digital PPL ‘volumes and adoption rise significantly’

Efforts by Lloyd’s of London to transform the market from a predominantly paper-based system to a digital one have shown “significant” progress in the final quarter of 2018, figures show.

Lloyd’s launched the Placing Platform Limited (PPL) - an electronic platform to support a more flexible negotiation and faster placement - for its syndicates in 2016. It set targets for them to use the “e-placement” or PPL and offered incentives to encourage greater adoption.

Today, data from Lloyd’s Board of PPL showed that 100 percent of syndicates at Lloyd’s reported under the e-placement mandate. And almost all International Underwriting Association (IUA) companies that have signed up to PPL have also been analysed.

Lloyd’s said that the target for Q4 2018 was to place 30 percent of in scope risks through electronic placement.

The data showed that syndicates had accepted 39 percent of in scope risks, and that 76 percent of syndicates had met or exceeded the target. A small amount, 7 percent, did not reach the target and 17 percent reported that they had no in scope risks during the period.

IUA companies signed up to PPL accepted an average of 41 percent of in scope risks, while 53 percent of IUA firms assessed met or exceeded the target.

Lloyd’s offered a partial rebate on annual subscriptions for 2018 for syndicates that met the targets. Following the results, it will pay this to 63 of the syndicates, while the total net amount of rebates was £12 million. However, 7 syndicates will be required to pay additional fees.

Shirine Khoury-Haq, Lloyd’s chief operating officer, said: “The fact that both volumes and adoption have risen significantly is great news for the market as a whole. I am pleased to see that Lloyd’s has again significantly exceeded its quarterly targets and that firms are being rewarded for their success with rebates on their subscriptions that represent meaningful sums of money.

“All of this is hard proof that, as a market, we are committed to making London an easier place to do business with simpler and more efficient processes, reinforcing our position as a global hub for re/insurance.”

Bronek Masojada, PPL Board chair, said: “This is another very strong set of numbers, demonstrating that all parts of the market have really committed time and energy to electronic placement. The fact that the market bound 37,537 risks on PPL by the end of 2018 is hard evidence that the challenge of digitalisation is being taken very seriously and I would like to thank all involved for their efforts.

“2019 will see PPL investing resources in continually improving the functionality of the platform and helping market practitioners to get the best from it. The aim is to make the ongoing process of adoption as seamless as possible for brokers and underwriters.”

The top five syndicates for adopting PPL are Beazley (s3623); Hiscox (s3624); Aegis (s1225); RenaissanceRe (s1458); and Asta (s5886).

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