Lloyd’s transformation efforts need to maintain momentum

The Future at Lloyd’s project needs to focus on delivering results and realise the time to ask the market what it wants has passed.

As more technology-related initiatives flood the market, the time to start seeing more results following sustained momentum is now, said Kirstin Duffield, managing director of Morning Data.

Speaking with The Insurer during this year’s Monte Carlo Reinsurance Rendez-Vous on the terrace at the Fairmont Hotel, Duffield fears the Future at Lloyd’s programme might not be very different to other London Market digital transformation projects that have been launched before.

“The progress made so far in the London digital transformation programme can’t be underestimated,” she said. “It certainly has seen more change in the last three years than the last 30 years, but the time for asking a burgeoning set of committees what they want from the production side of the market, but also how they want that delivered, has passed,” she added.

“Technology has never been more complex, even though in fact the ability to exchange data has never been so simple. But the deployment of endless short-term contractors and highly paid consultants hasn’t, in my view really returned as much value as we might have hoped or expected,” Duffield said.

Duffield deems the transformation around delegated authority and the DA Data Standards (DA SATS) and Placing Platform Limited, among others, to be good examples of projects that are delivering returns.

“But really, now is the time to grasp that momentum that was gained at the end of the Target Operating Model (TOM) programme and hopefully the Future at Lloyd’s will not lose that momentum from what we’ve achieved so far,” she said.

Citing global chairman of reinsurance solutions at Aon, Dominic Christian, when he talked about moving from a dating agency to a data agency, she said technologists have been chanting this mantra for years.

“John Neal has an opportunity now not to suck the oxygen out of the room with the momentum that was gained from the TOM programme. But this initiative needs to see more results, it needs to continue - even the brand change is confusing to this market.

“There certainly has been deliverables but for the value for money, I would like to see adoption take the primary position at this particular stage and that adoption is key.

“It is far, far better to have a full adoption of a system that’s not perfect than no adoption of a system that everyone thinks is great,” she said.

In terms of the role Morning Data will play as part of the London Market digital transformation work, Duffield would like to engage in partnerships.

“It’s about opening the door of collaboration,” she said. “We don’t just see ourselves as a vendor, we see ourselves as a facilitator so we can really bring digital transformation programmes that meet our clients’ needs whilst also remaining aligned to the overall London Market digital transformation programme as well.”