Is London still a marine market leader?

Is London still a marine market leader?

By admin  On March 28, 2023 In Cargo, Insurance Marine News, Keep, Marine Hull, Marine Liability, Political Risk, Credit & Finance 

With the relative decline of London market’s capital share in the hull and cargo market, the first question asked at the Marine Insurance London Conference on Friday March 24^th was whether London could still call itself a marine market leader.

While the hard numbers make it hard to deny that London’s relative position had declined, all the speakers said that the situation was rather more nuanced than the headlines might suggest.

At a Breakfast Briefing moderated by Louise Nevill from Marsh, IUMI’s Lars Lange noted that in the Hull sector London had been in decline since 2013, while Cefor, the Norwegian equivalent of London’s LMA and IUA, had recorded significant growth in that sector. Singapore had also grown. ”One reason is that business is becoming more local – that’s an ongoing trend. So, yes, London has had a harder time when it comes to Hull”.

Tom Midttun from Lockton Marine said that there was a “competence game” and a “capital game”, and that London had been losing the competence game.

Iain Henstridge from Apollo Syndicate pointed out that during 2018 and 2019 the Lloyd’s market had gone through a remediation process, and that London had seen a huge influx of MGA income in 2022. He pointed out three factors that needed to be considered – London could deal during normal office hours with all parts of the world with the exception of Australia and New Zealand; more people were employed in marine insurance in London than anywhere else in the world, with representatives from all other markets having offices in London. This made London the best place for face-to-face meetings and networking; and that other measures apart from the headline “market share”, for example, in claims leadership, all contributed to London’s ongoing position as a market leader.

Tom Midttun accepted that Norway was not the best place to access cheap capital, which gave London an edge in the “capital game”.

Lars Lange agreed that you could just say “the London market” in terms of the putting of underwriting pen to underwriting paper. Man other maritime stakeholders, such as the IMO, classifications societies, etc, had their head offices in London. “Also, the general insurance conditions of the London market are still to the fore. On the hull side we have the Nordic plan. For us London is an excellent place to meet players and get things done”, Lange said.