Corrects to Axa XL’s UK and Lloyd’s business from Axa XL in paragraph 18

By Edward Carron

June 25 - (The Insurer) - Leading insurance figures say London's digitisation drive is at an inflection point after a call earlier this month by the Data Council for the market-wide adoption of Acord’s Global Reinsurance & Large Commercial Carrier (GRLC) standards.

Axa XL’s head of market transformation for the UK and Lloyd's Simon Squires described a "tipping point", while Acord’s global business leader and international president Chris Newman pointed to a possible “watershed”.

Both were among four leading figures involved in the digitisation push who told The Insurer they were positive that significant changes were coming, although some raised questions about the speed of adoption and next steps.

The CEOs of Acord, the International Underwriting Association, the London & International Insurance Brokers' Association, Lloyd’s, the Lloyd's Market Association, the London Market Group, PPL, Velonetic and Verisk all signed an open letter which was presented at a campaign launch on June 3.

Squires, an ambassador for the campaign along with Verisk Specialty Business Solutions CEO Tim Rayner and Acord's Newman, were among those who said they had received extremely positive feedback since the launch.

JIGSAW

While London market tech veteran Jeff Ward of Ebix, who is in charge of selling the PlacingHub platform, said that the future of the London market must be “modern and digital”, he questioned how exactly it is going to happen.

Ward said that GRLC, which Ebix has used in its products since its inception, is not the whole answer as the market is a system of floating nodes that is part digital, part analogue.

The campaign launch in the Lloyd's underwriting room involved 30 prominent industry figures assembling a large jigsaw puzzle against the clock, representing how a disparate system of databases, platforms and programs will be able to fit together into a fully digital market.

Axa XL's Squires referenced the jigsaw, identifying the pieces that come after GRLC that will help fill in the gaps.

In an interview with The Insurer, he cited examples such as Acord's messaging gateway, which allows carriers to connect with brokers and enables digital submission flows.

DOCUMENTS

The London market still largely runs on documents, and while they are now email attachments rather than pieces of paper being hauled around Lloyd’s in suitcases, they are still inefficient and costly, with highly experienced underwriters spending time rekeying information from the documents.

Replacing this system with data-first trading, using the GRLC standard, would be far more efficient, proponents of the change argue.

However, an unwillingness to take on the challenges is holding back progress, Rayner told The Insurer, adding: "If you haven't got the ambition to change, to grow, to digitise, to deliver the efficiency, then yeah, carry on with the document."

SMALL COMPANIES

Squires said that data-first trading has easily accessible benefits for all participants, but Rayner admitted that the drive for change is not universal across the market.

Despite pressure for digitisation among large brokers and carriers, this is not the case among small companies for whom there is no “business case to invest, to adopt, to change", said Rayner.

Rayner said widespread digitisation will only come when “there's a commodity play out there that everyone can subscribe to and the level of interaction and ingestion that isn't available today”.

Ward, meanwhile, said that the cost might outweigh the savings for some very small brokers that only place a single-digit number of risks each year.

BIG MOVES

While small companies may be lagging, some of the biggest players are not waiting around, with Axa XL's UK and Lloyd's business aiming to get rid of paper and emails by the end of 2026.

For entities with huge volumes and deep pockets, efficiencies can add up to huge gains.

But that is not the only benefit which supporters of the campaign are touting, as doing business with data rather than documents lets bigger companies capture those numbers which they can then leverage into insights and competitive advantages that scale with size.

And Lloyd’s, arguably the biggest player of all, is among the main backers of the campaign.

With the largest players in the market leading the way and filling in the gaps in the puzzle, everyone else will be encouraged to take the digitisation dive, said Squires.