The re/insurance industry should no longer consider the London market as a hub for insurance and reinsurance business, but instead adjust its thinking towards a global marketplace, according to Nicolas Aubert, President of the Insurance Institute of London, and Head of Great Britain at Willis Towers Watson.
In a lecture held today at the Old Library in the Lloyd’s of London building, Aubert discussed the future of the London marketplace in light of “a lot of incoming asteroids,” which include growing competition from both local and international markets, Brexit, increased regulation, and other industry headwinds.
Aubert urged the marketplace to be bold, and underlined that no market in the world can compete with London’s intellectual capital proposition, its people proposition, its infrastructure proposition, and its regulatory proposition, in terms of scale and quality of data, but urged London to better articulate its value proposition based on these four elements.
He called for the London market to further drive and further innovate, before stating that London should no longer consider itself a hub. Instead, Aubert called for the marketplace and the people that participate in it, to change the mindset and take a risk, and think about a global marketplace, which is being driven and assisted by the rise in technology.
Ultimately, said Aubert, the London market can either protect itself as a hub or embrace globalisation of the re/insurance industry, and project what the London market has been doing at home to ensure the creation of a platform that enables every risk to be transacted from everywhere on the planet.
Viewing the market in this way is a risk, said Aubert, as by definition you bring in all the competition, but he stressed that “we cannot kid ourselves” as this market is shifting to a global one, which is being driven by tech and the increased interconnectedness of the world.
“Let’s no longer consider London a hub, let’s go for a global marketplace, and let’s drive it from London,” said Aubert.
