Lloyd’s secures £300m loan to fund Future at Lloyd’s blueprint

Lloyd’s has today confirmed that it has secured £300m of senior debt, avoiding increases in market levies, to fund the first stage of implementation for its Future at Lloyd’s blueprint, known as Blueprint One.

The loan will provide funding to meet the near and medium-term cash requirements of the transformation initiative, which will begin to be actioned in 2020.

This funding forms part of a broader framework established by Lloyd’s to help maintain a timely and on-budget execution of Blueprint One; the framework also covers governance and oversight.

Lloyd’s stated that the corporation’s secure financial position will support any year-on-year costs incurred by the Future at Lloyd’s programme; the market will run this on an agile basis, where funding for each quarter will be dependent on the execution of planned deliverables.

Governance

Governance for the Future at Lloyd’s initiative will be delivered by a newly formed Technology and Transformation Committee, which will be overseen by the Lloyd’s board and council, and chaired by Andy Haste, Lloyd’s deputy chairman.

Jennifer Rigby, chief operations officer and executive committee member at Lloyd’s, will lead the programme’s delivery.

In addition, Lloyd’s has hired more than 80 corporation and market employees across the blueprint’s various workstreams. Strategic partners will be onboarded during quarter one in 2020, to support the phased implementation of the manifesto.

In February 2020, Lloyd’s will publish Blueprint 1a, which will detail the plans and deliverables for Future at Lloyd’s phase one implementation.

Building a plan

On 1 May this year, Lloyd’s published its Future at Lloyd’s prospectus. Six key changes were outlined, explaining how the market can respond to challenges and seize opportunities to change the way it delivers value to customers. These are:

• A platform for complex risk that makes doing business easier and enables efficient digital placement of the most difficult-to-cover risks.
• Lloyd’s Risk Exchange through which less complex risks can be placed in minutes at a fraction of today’s costs.
• Flexible capital that can simply and effectively access a diverse set of insurance risks on the Lloyd’s platform.
• A Syndicate-in-a-Box, which offers a streamlined opportunity for innovators to bring new products and business into the market.
• A next generation claims service that improves customer experience and increases trust in the market by speeding up claim’s payments.
• An ecosystem of services that helps all market participants develop new business and provide outstanding service to their customers.

Forward focused

John Neal, Lloyd’s chief executive, said: “Since the launch of Blueprint One, we have focused on designing a carefully structured and managed approach to planning and execution to allow regular delivery of value to the market. With robust governance and oversight now in place, and the funds for delivery secured, we have every confidence in the successful delivery of the Future at Lloyd’s.”

Jennifer Rigby, chief operations officer at Lloyd’s and executive sponsor of the Future at Lloyd’s added: “I’m delighted to lead the delivery of the Future at Lloyd’s. Our dedicated team are working at pace to develop and deliver the solutions we’ve promised to fundamentally transform our market. It’s an exciting time to be at Lloyd’s.”