James Dean talks Spice Girls and skiing with a LLoyd's underwriter
It was a morning of the Spice Girls, Amy Winehouse and skiing.
Unfortunately the location was a box in Lloyd’s and not a tour bus parked in Val d’Isere.
No après-ski then but a discussion of world tour contingency insurance with an underwriter.
Still, it’s not like you get to do this every day. As part of my initiation into the world of insurance, I sat on a Lloyd’s box last week and watched as brokers and underwriters did their thing – and listened in to some interesting deals.
Brokers are funny characters, and what a range of breeds there were that day: the classic city wideboy, the classic public schoolboy, and then, well, a nineteen year old boy, referred to fondly as ‘pup’.
It all became very interesting when one walked over and presented a slip the current talk of the trading floor: the Spice Girls in Take That style, are back with a world tour next year, and need some contingency insurance.
Is there enough time between shows? How much travelling are they doing? Are they meeting press between shows, or having time off?
While listening to the discussion, I began to wonder whether Amy Winehouse found it difficulty to get hold on contingency insurance.
My host later said that in his opinion she is uninsurable, which I think must cause her great concern.
Into the afternoon, and there was a skiing event that required attention. I was taken through all the possible risks associated with such an event, and concluded that I would never put on a skiing event in all my lifetime.
What if it doesn’t snow? What if the TV signal fails – how will my advertisers advertise? What if someone skis into a crevasse?
After hearing about all these risks, all these potential problems, all these possible disasters, I thought: what if, on the way to a show, the Spice Girls fill their tour bus up with petrol instead of diesel?
I thanked my hosts, and left the box under a cloud of impending doom.
