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I promised not to mention the B word again until next month. And I intend to honour that commitment (an odd concept in the context, I know). Save to say that although Brexit seems, for the moment, to be all encompassing, there was a strong feeling when the LIIBA Board met last week to discuss our plans for 2019 that now is the time to look beyond this immediate challenge. We also need to think how our industry can develop, regardless of our future relationship with the European Union. So, it is this spirit of entrepreneurial optimism that I want to explore this month.
We have been encouraged by some of the thoughts emerging from the leaders of the underwriting communities here in London – specifically Andrew Brooks of Ascot and John Neal, CEO of Lloyd’s. Both have called for a focus on growing our traditional markets in North America. We absolutely see scope for doing that. For too long our most loyal customers there have felt undervalued. That is certainly the sense that I got from discussions I had when I was there last November. We are rather taking them for granted. And this, in part, has caused them to start to look elsewhere. That is not in anybody’s interests.
But we also see opportunity for attracting new customers to the market, particularly in the coverholder arena. Here the issue tends to be potential clients have formed the opinion that Lloyd’s is difficult to trade with. We need a way to dispel this myth (well, actually, to make it a myth first and then dispel it) if we are to make headway.
So, we have the component parts for a serious push in the US. We are glad that our insurer partners are again seeing us as their key salespeople. That is our role. And we are seeing the emergence of technologies that can help us all make our case. Lloyd’s new binder quote and bind platform – Workbench – is a nice piece of kit. Simple, intuitive and well-focussed both on an obvious problem that needs solving and a target audience open to listening. It speaks directly to that central challenge of making ourselves easier to do business with.
But our burgeoning buoyancy does not end there. We think the market is capable of campaigning on more than one front. So yes, let us grow in North America, but how about a little look somewhat further south? London’s penetration in Latin American markets, as LMG reports have shown us, is not great. Even where we have traditionally had big accounts, some of these, such as the Venezuelan oil industry, have fallen foul of some little local difficulties. But consider this. Three of the largest Latin American economies have welcomed in new Presidents in the last two months. The Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, appears to believe in free trade, despite his sometime populist protectionist rhetoric, and his government is looking at some major construction projects. Equally, Ivan Duque in Colombia is likely to prove more open to import/export flow than his vanquished opponent, Gustavo Petro, would have done. And while Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador may self-identify as a socialist, his book: “A new hope for Mexico” could have been written by Tony Blair and its title is reminiscent of Barack Obama. Besides, if he wants to build Maya Tren – a new railway line from Cancun to Palenque – that is going to need insuring. So, he may well welcome access to some inventive capacity from overseas.
All of which spells to us opportunity. Add in the fact that our government is always delighted if we talk to them about potential new trade routes, and not that other thing, and I believe we have some momentum. All of the Americas can become our valued customers if we market our market effectively. I am looking forward to visiting a whole new range of Embassies this year.
