TOP 5 THEMES

05

Technology and data & analytics

As noted earlier in this report, the use of PPL to quote and bind contracts has been central to London’s ability to trade through the pandemic, with PPL seeing an increase of over 50% on the prior year’s usage. The increased flow through PPL and other electronic placing tools is an encouraging development and demonstrates the potential created by technology. It is also worth noting the increased speed of change and adoption through the pandemic; this offers a glimpse of what is possible when the market stands as one behind a shared set of objectives. Lloyd’s ‘Blueprint Two’ was launched in November 2020, a year after ‘Blueprint One’ proposed six initiatives to transform the Lloyd’s market: 1. Complex Risk Platform, 2. Lloyd’s Risk Exchange, 3. Claims Solution, 4. Capital Solution, 5. Syndicate in a box, and 6. Services hub.

‘Blueprint Two’ moves the ‘Future at Lloyd’s’ programme from strategic intent to a focus on delivery. For clients and Aon network colleagues who are not process or operational experts, it may be a dry read. However, it is important because it provides a road map that will, over time, improve service for all stakeholders’ benefits, including clients, by reducing transaction time and costs by up to USD 800 million per year. It is an ambitious, complex, and highly interconnected plan; the report is available on the Lloyd’s website.

The discussion on data appears to be taking two connected but distinct paths at this time – as a key enabler of operational improvement and as a foundation for innovation. ‘Future at Lloyd’s’ has placed data at its core, embracing the concept of ‘right data at the right time’. It seeks to gather key data from each risk at the moment of binding, including placement, tax, claims, accounting, and settlement information. This data will be stored electronically and will enable end-to-end digital processing, thus reducing the reporting overhead, the volume of errors, time delays, and the duplication of effort across the market.

Gaining insight from data that creates new opportunities, enables product development, and develops a greater understanding of client need is the other side of the current data debate. Creating more value from data, while obtaining more and better quality data, is becoming increasingly relevant as client need continues to evolve, and traditional placement activity continues to be the focus of digitisation.

The hard market has slowed areas of collaboration a little because of increased work-load and carriers’ reduced appetite for Structure Portfolio Solutions (SPS). However, we anticipate 2021 will see a step up in new SPS offerings as investments in data and analytics, particularly where brokers have portfolio profitability data, lead to a new wave of deals, which aggregate follow market capacity and bring new capital to support these placements.

"The discussion on data appears to be taking two connected but distinct paths at this time – as a key enabler of operational improvement and as a foundation for innovation."

International property