Lloyd's of London

Lloyd's is a marketplace rather than an insurance company: brokers bring risks to syndicates, and until the 1990s the capital behind those syndicates came from individual Names who pledged unlimited personal liability. Asbestos and pollution claims from decades-old policies, compounded by reinsurance spirals in the excess-of-loss market, produced losses of roughly 8 billion pounds between 1988 and 1992, bankrupted thousands of Names and forced the shift to corporate capital and the Equitas run-off vehicle. Readers get the anatomy of a catastrophe-exposed underwriting cycle and of reserving failures that accumulated for thirty years before anyone acted. Adam Raphael reported the crisis as it broke and the market history covers the institution's structure and its reputation.

2 books