Backchat Insider's Market Matrix

To view the Insider's Market Matrix in full, click on the pdf link, right.

Bright ideas

I hear those thoughtful bods over at Ordnance Survey have created special maps to help colour-blind underwriters. The new maps use a fluorescent palette to make sure insurers and brokers can’t get lost. Hope they work better than my satnav …

All rounders

Hats off to Lockton, which is celebrating a double-whammy sporting triumph. Lockton beat Marsh 1-0 in the final of the Broker Cup football competition after fighting off stiff rivalry from Aon and Willis. A Lockton rugby team then went on to win the Lloyd’s Plate Cup at Richmond rugby ground on 19 May, beating Miller.

Hosiery for heroes

After its staff were spotted wandering around dressed as superheroes, I wondered if Giles was offering crime fighting as an ancillary product. Turns out they were actually celebrating ‘Superhero Friday’ on 20 May to mark a 12-month partnership with Children’s Hospices UK, a charity that supports the UK’s 43 children’s hospice services.

Capo Donaldson

Paul Donaldson is one of the industry’s more colourful characters, with equally colourful nicknames. RSA staff call him “P Diddy” or – more ominously – “The Don”. Rumours he is cultivating a pencil moustache and a Sicilian accent are unconfirmed.

No free lunches

Speculation about rate rises is whipping the market into a frenzy, but Hiscox chief executive Bronek Masojada has some insight. He asked the insurer’s Chicago branch manager why he was sure rises were on the cards. Apparently the clue is that brokers are once again treating Hiscox bosses to slap-up lunches.

Touchy subjects

The day the biggest sex scandal in insurance history hits headlines is not when you want your press office to opt out. But when my pals at Insurance Times called Munich Re to ask about the orgy with 20 prostitutes it held to reward salesmen, the reply was: “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Perhaps they should have brought up its $1.5bn first-quarter catastrophe loss instead?

Computer says no

Everybody should make sure their details are on the Motor Insurance Database, advises Eric Galbraith. He should know. At the advert launch to promote the Continuous Insurance Enforcement campaign, the Biba chief revealed his details weren’t on the database when he checked.

Red or dead

Sometimes it’s tough supporting Liverpool FC. RSA mid-market director and proud Reds fan Mike Lawton says that whenever he visits his office in Manchester, he has to check his Liverpool FC banner hasn’t been defaced by the resident Manchester United followers.