Posted on: 3 November 2015
The overall premium total for the London company market in 2014 was £22.943bn, a new report by the International Underwriting Association has revealed (available to download here). Gross premium written in London totalled £15.855bn while a further £7.079bn was identified as written in other locations but overseen by London operations.
The IUA has now been collecting such data for five years and this year’s edition of the London Company Market Statistics Report includes a number of timeline graphs, plotting changes in premium income since 2010. Data submissions are received from around 60 firms and business is analysed by placement type, class and geographical origin.
Dave Matcham, chief executive of the IUA said: “Each company is, of course, unique and will have its own experiences of the business in the London Market, but we can now detect some longer term evidence for trends that have been keenly debated.
“It is clear that a growing level of business is being written independently in local markets. Direct and facultative placements are becoming more dominant compared to treaty business. Premium changes are not uniform across different business classes and there are some interesting variations in the significance of emerging markets.
“Our report also discusses influencing factors such as changing company structures, increased interest in delegated authorities and the relationship between the company market and Lloyd’s.
“This is the first edition we have published since the London Market Group issued its London Matters survey. We hope that in the years to come our statistics will assist in monitoring the impact of the various market projects aimed at boosting London’s premium income.”
This year’s report shows that in 2014 the split of London business between direct/facultative and treaty placements was 77% to 23%. For premium written outside the City but overseen by London operations the division was 81% to 19%.
The spread of premium income between different classes remains relatively stable, although there have been contrasting experiences across the company market. Property, liability, professional lines and especially marine all saw income rise while total premiums fell for construction, aviation and motor.
Geographically, for business written in London, the UK and Ireland remains the dominant source of income with a 52% share of the total. For business controlled by London operations but written in other offices, continental Europe has become the largest income provider (34%) overtaking regional UK and Ireland offices (33%).
Combining the IUA’s total company market income figure of £22.934bn with Lloyd’s of London’s gross written premium figure of £25.283bn gives an overall total for the London Market of £48.217bn.
