THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF INSURERS

Insurance

The UK insurance industry is highly respected and at the heart of global activity. It is the largest in Europe and the third largest in the world, accounting for 8.6 per cent of total worldwide premium income. It dominates the worldwide market for internationally traded insurance and reinsurance and underwriting, earning nearly 25 per cent of its revenue from overseas markets.

London has been the world's leading insurance market for over 350 years, and continues to lead innovation worldwide, contributing over £6bn annually to the UK balance of payments. There is a high level of specialisation, the main sectors being risk management, general insurance broking, underwriting, reinsurance, claims management and loss adjusting, personal financial advice, life insurance broking, life underwriting and reinsurance and life claims. Only in London are all the world's 20 largest insurance and reinsurance active.

UK insurers have £902bn of funds under management - almost double those of any other European country. The industry had worldwide premium income of £167bn in 2003.

Insurers work closely with the other professions represented in the FSG and all of those professions depend upon insurance for their professional protection. The major trade associations are the Association of British Insurers, The British Insurance Brokers Association, AIRMIC (The Association of Risk Managers), Lloyd's, and the International Underwriting Association.

World Class and Fit for the Future

■ The Chartered Insurance Institute has almost 100,000 members in over 130 countries. It has examination centres throughout the British Isles and in more than 100 cities overseas. The Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters offers professional and technical qualifications, and CPD, for claims specialists. The Institute of Risk Management provides internationally recognised qualifications in this vital field of activity. Integrated with the CII is the Personal Finance Society for qualified financial advisers. The Insurance Institute of London has 14,000 active members and provides the world’s leading programme of open lectures.

Country issues

■ London remains the unchallenged global leader in the pricing of the critical risks inherent in intercontinental trade, in the acceptance of new and emergent risks, and in setting the limits to insurability, for example, for aircraft and ships, for the huge investments in the exploitation of space and maintaining the viability of nuclear energy through the London-led pool system.

■ In the more humdrum covers of motor, household, and professional indemnity, British practice is also taken as the model by most emergent countries.

■ The post-communist world copies British insurance law and practice; it continues to bring new and complex risks to be covered or reinsured in London. China has linked closely with London in the independent-minded creation of an insurance market; India’s new market benefits from the longstanding links between the Insurance Institute of India and the CII. London Market practice and practitioners are prevalent in Bermuda and other tax and regulatory havens.

■ The Livery of the Worshipful Company of Insurers share an accumulation of thousands of years of personal professional experience in global markets, which they are happy to bring to bear to support the international role of the Lord Mayor.

Contact: Mike Cooper-Mitchell on 0207 600 4006 or
mailto:mc-m@hotmail.co.uk