The “integral and highly complementary” relationship between the Lloyd’s and Bermuda markets was underscored by chief of markets at Lloyd’s Patrick Tiernan (pictured left) during a panel discussion on ‘Lloyd’s – Bermuda: A shared perspective’ at the Bermuda Risk Summit.
He noted that this is best seen by how Lloyd’s people and syndicates interact with the island, with nearly 50% of Lloyd’s syndicates having some sort of presence in the market. From a Lloyd’s perspective, he said, Bermuda is one of its most valuable counterparties and from a reinsurance perspective, close to a third of the business at Lloyd’s is ceded back to Bermuda parties.
Last week’s announcement of a joint commitment by Lloyd’s and the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) for closer collaboration is an affirmation of the strength of the relationship between the world’s two major re/insurance hubs – and their shared ambition to make this more tangible. Tiernan identified innovation and education as the building blocks at the heart of the relationship and the newly announced initiative – which is backed by the Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers (ABIR) and the Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA).
“Starting with innovation, in London, we have the Lloyd’s Lab which is so fast becoming an internationally recognised hub for insurance innovation,” he said. “It’s enabled by an ecosystem that has access to 250,000 professionals and it does foster an acceleration of product development which has seen some fantastic results.
“There’s been 11 programmes so far – and the twelfth one is about to start – and from these 11 programmes, over a billion dollars of investment has been generated and hundreds of millions of dollars in premiums. About 95% of these alumni, who actually might not have come to insurance, stay in insurance and are working in our industry today, and that’s over 1,000 jobs.”
As part of Lloyd’s collaboration with the BMA, he said, the marketplace is delighted to commit to bringing the Lloyd’s Lab to Bermuda in H1 2025. The launch of this new reinsurance cohort will see the expertise of the Bermuda market harnessed to solve some of the key challenges facing the re/insurance market today and to help bridge existing protection gaps.
The theme of education is one close to the hearts of many in the market, Tiernan said, and it’s with that in mind that the Lloyd’s Academy training programmes will be made available to Bermuda market participants. Over the last three years, over 14,000 people have been supported by these training programmes which are targeted at educating and inspiring future professionals.
“Again, we’re working with the BMA, with ABIR and with the BDA (the Bermuda Business Development Agency) and we’re looking to extend that category to Bermuda,” he said. “Both on an in-person and a [virtual] basis. We’ll be working closely together over the next couple of years, starting in 2024.
“We hope that this is just a small, simple step. We’ve got bigger thoughts on the horizon, bigger things we can work together on and bigger challenges we can work together on over the next couple of years. But we wanted this to be practical and tangible – to bind our communities together and make them stronger. We look forward to working with the BMA and ABIR and hopefully a lot of you in this room over the next couple of years.”
