Lloyd’s issued Blueprint Two in November 2020, outlining the roadmap for the next two years and detailing how the digital-led transformation plan will change the way Lloyd’s operates.
This should create potential opportunities for all market participants, but inevitably leads to delivery-dependencies and challenges for Managing Agencies, Brokers and Coverholders to ensure they maximise value for their own organisations.
A Quick Recap on Blueprint One and Two
In September 2019, Blueprint One proposed six workstream solutions to transform the Lloyd’s market including complex risk placement, Lloyd’s risk exchange, a claims solution, capital solution, Syndicate in a Box and Services hub.
In April 2020, delivering a digital Coverholder solution was one of the three initiatives prioritised by Lloyd’s.
In November 2020, Blueprint Two focused on the open market and delegated authorities (DA) risks that make up over 80% of the premium income and 90% of contracts placed at Lloyd’s. These were split into two key transaction stages; getting covered and recovering from loss.
Getting covered focused on delivering a digital placement for new business, endorsements and renewals with recovering from loss geared towards digital claims notification and claims adjusting.
An end-to-end platform
For DA business, Blueprint Two outlines an end-to-end platform to digitise processing and provide new tools to Coverholders, effectively digitising the current process. While less comprehensive than the proposed offering for open market placements, when combined with Lloyd’s more risk-based approach to DA governance, this has the potential to take significant friction and cost from a process that needs to be as slick as possible.
Claims
For claims, a replacement for ECF slated for delivery in 2022 and increased digitisation may improve claims services for open market placements. However, in respect of DA business, Blueprint Two offers significant opportunities for Delegated Claims Administrators (DCAs) through digital data capture, automated workflow and automated loss fund management but little for participants where claims authority is not delegated. In a hardening market, the appetite for syndicates to establish loss funds is likely to be less not more so potential client and therefore business benefits may not manifest.
Challenges for DA business in Blueprint Two
The digitisation of delegated business in Blueprint Two is an ambitious plan with a significant volume of change to implement within the next two years. Historically, market-wide technology changes are not without challenge and there may well be further updates provided by Lloyd’s to recognise changes to or delays in deploying solutions as well as the continued impact of Covid-19. Organisations that are deferring their own system changes pending promised Lloyd’s solution deliveries may be left waiting and this inevitably raises a level of frustration across the market. There is a tipping point when organisations can wait no longer and invest in their own solutions to meet their own business needs, with the risk that if these don’t ultimately dovetail with Lloyd’s, they will either absorb any additional overhead, losing advertised efficiency gains, or transfer business to other markets.
Regardless of timings, organisations will need to review and potentially update their own facility systems, controls and processes to derive true efficiencies and cost savings in the DA space. While API’s are not readily available in market solutions and across the value chain, we will continue to see re-keying of data and the consequent inaccuracies and asymmetries across the market.
More positively, continued remote working has been a real driver for adoption of electronic solutions and this wind of change may improve the historically slow market adoption of new tools.
How r10 can help?
Alongside Blueprint Two, leveraging technology solutions to improve DA and facility processes, be they automation, AI or full value-chain software solutions, presents a huge opportunity to transform this vital part of the market.
r10 provides an integrated partnership approach to define and execute your DA and facility approach. We have the expertise to provide advisory services, project delivery, technology solutions and outsourced managed services across your DA and facility footprint.