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Lloyd’s uses football as a career equaliser

The story of how Lloyd’s has attempted to correctly predict the winner of the 2022 FIFA World Cup has made headlines around the world. Media outlets as far afield as America, India and the Middle East scrambled to report that England has been named by the market as the most likely champion of this year’s tournament.

Our World Cup predictions are an opportunity to make the world of insurance more accessible, and to demystify the market. It’s a chance to demonstrate how data is critical to underwriting decisions and the unexpected ways in which we use it. The unique pulling power of football means we can engage with an entirely new audience that wouldn’t necessarily associate insurance with a worldwide celebration of their sporting heroes.

We wanted to harness this energy and interest closer to home, as a way of showing young people in our London neighbourhood, who may never have dreamt of insurance as a career, that it’s a job that will bring them into contact with every aspect of life. There isn’t much that goes on in our modern world that insurance doesn’t touch – and that includes innovative new forms of capturing and joining up data, which are becoming increasingly important. So, what better way to reach them than by tapping into their passion for football while the World Cup is in their homes and conversations?

Lloyd’s are working with SEO London, a charity that helps students from low socio-economic backgrounds and from ethnic minorities, to broaden their career horizons through access to academic, professional and enrichment opportunities.

“In a rapidly changing world it’s essential that we hire the skills for the future from a more diverse talent pool in order to transform the industry. That’s why we want to show the students insurance in action and give them a connection to a potentially rewarding career that might be very different to their expectations.”
Mark Lomas, Head of Culture, Lloyd's

We invited undergraduate students from across universities around the UK to visit the Underwriting Room and participate in a re-creation of the World Cup predictions event so it became their evening – a chance to ask questions and meet their peers who have already started a university course or are in the early stages of their career in insurance.

Guy Bonwick, an underwriter who heads Axis Insurance’s Accident and Health class of business, was also on hand to explain how personal passion and professional career can combine under the right circumstances. A former academy-level footballer for Ipswich Town FC, Guy has first-hand experience of the importance of vital professional athlete and sports insurance. When his ambition to become a professional player wasn’t realised, a placement year working in the Lloyd’s market while studying at Loughborough University led him to become a sports underwriter.

Importantly, it’s not just about helping kids who’ve grown up within close proximity to the Lloyd’s building , it’s also about making sure we tap into the types of new talent and digital savvy mindsets that the market will need in the very near future. Insurance is changing and the workforce will need to change too.

“In a rapidly changing world it’s essential that we hire the skills for the future from a more diverse talent pool in order to transform the industry,” says Lloyd’s Head of Culture, Mark Lomas. “That’s why we want to show the students insurance in action and give them a connection to a potentially rewarding career that might be very different to their expectations.”

Football may be the beautiful game, but what Lloyd’s is setting out to show is that insurance could be the beautiful career.

Our World Cup winner prediction

Following two successful predictions in the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups, Lloyd's have announced our predicted 2022 FIFA World Cup champions, based on collective insurable value of players.