Our seventeenth cohort

Cohort 17 focuses on areas where the Lloyd’s market is actively seeking solutions that can be adopted and scaled.

This reflects a clear shift from experimentation towards practical innovation, solutions that improve how the market operates day-to-day and strengthen its ability to respond to an increasingly complex and interconnected risk landscape.

1. Operational Efficiency in the Lloyd's market

Why this matters: As market conditions soften, the focus for many insurance companies is clear: do more with less, while maintaining underwriting discipline and performance.  

Many of the challenges in the Lloyd’s market; fragmented data, complex workflows and duplicated processes, are well understood. The real opportunity now is to implement solutions that can be adopted at scale, improving how the market operates day-to-day and enabling more informed, consistent decision-making.

The market is seeking solutions that move beyond isolated automation, towards approaches that improve visibility, optimise capital allocation and support more effective portfolio management.

The key areas demanding transformation are:

• Intelligent placement and distribution: Limited visibility into where risk is coming from and how it flows through distribution pipelines, relying heavily on spreadsheets rather than dynamic data and intelligent decision-making tools.
• Portfolio steering and capital allocation: A need to shift from traditional underwriting workflows to advanced portfolio management, enabling smart follow capabilities and better capital allocation to outcompete in a softer market.
• Centralised vetting and frictional costs: Significant duplication of effort across the market in financial crime checks, compliance vetting, and basic data ingestion, all of which drive up operational costs.

We are seeking solutions that transform market operations, this can include (but is not limited to):

• Technologies that enable advanced portfolio steering, predicting profitability, and providing intelligent risk selection.
• Distribution analytics tools or capital advisory software that track the true sources of risk and provide a holistic view of broker placements.
• Shared industry-level vetting, reporting, and clearance tools that remove the barrier to entry and prevent the same checks being done separately across syndicates.
• Claims tools that predict significant losses early in the lifecycle to shorten the tail of long-tail business and improve reserving accuracy.

Examples of market gaps that your solution could address:

• Predictive analytics models that flag seemingly innocuous third-party casualty claims before they develop into major losses.
• A unified digital distribution layer mapping wholesale and retail risk flows into the London market.
• An API-driven, market-wide clearinghouse for onboarding coverholders and completing financial crime checks

2. New Products for the Lloyd's market

Why this matters: The global risk landscape is evolving rapidly, creating demand for new products that can be developed and adopted in response to emerging risks.

From the growth of AI infrastructure to geopolitical disruption and supply chain fragility, the market needs solutions that respond to real-world challenges and enable businesses to operate with greater resilience.

Lloyd’s is uniquely positioned to support the development of these products — combining specialist underwriting expertise with new sources of data, insight and technology.

We need new products to address:

• Data centres and high-performance infrastructure: The AI boom is driving the rapid expansion of highly complex data centres. The market is seeing increased demand for capacity and sophisticated risk transfer models for their construction, physical property exposures, extreme energy utilisation, and the associated business interruption risks.
• Global resilience: The market requires solutions which address supply chain disruption, geopolitical breakdown, energy transition bottlenecks, and the macroeconomic volatility impacting trade routes.
• The autonomy economy: The physical manifestation of AI, including; autonomous shipping, advanced robotics and Industry 4.0, requires specific, niche underwriting rather than being bundled into general liability policies.

We are seeking solutions that deliver new products and advanced risk insights, this can include (but is not limited to):

• Data and technology-driven solutions for assessing property, credit, and business interruption risks of utility-scale AI data centres.
• Risk transfer products that allow global businesses to navigate protectionism, supply chain fragility, and long-tail geopolitical shocks.
• Advanced actuarial models for insuring stationary robotics, collaborative robots, and autonomous maritime vessels.
• Solutions for tracking and insuring against critical infrastructure and systemic failures.

Examples of market gaps that your solution could address:

• Business interruption coverage tailored to the downtime of AI infrastructure and hyperscale data centres.
• Parametric or supply-chain mapping models that alert insurers and clients to specific geopolitical flashpoints impacting manufacturing or transit.
• Dynamic pricing algorithms using live telemetry data from autonomous robots or systems.

3. Experimental Innovation

Why this matters: Alongside solutions with a clear path to adoption, the market has highlighted the need to explore early-stage ideas that may shape its future direction.

For Cohort 17, we are introducing a ‘wildcard’ experimental theme intended to incubate super-emerging technologies and complex scientific advancements. If you have a concept that doesn't fit neatly into the traditional insurance landscape but could redefine how the market operates in the next 5 to 10 years, we want to hear from you.

We are seeking solutions that explore the future of risk and insurance, this can include (but is not limited to):

• Quantum computing: Exploring both the existential threat to current digital security (cyber aggregation) and the opportunities for unparalleled data processing.
• Fusion energy and deep tech: Novel frameworks for underwriting the next generation of energy transition, such as commercial nuclear fusion.
• Next-generation Alternative Risk Transfer (ART): Highly sophisticated financial systems connecting institutional capital directly with complex, systemic insurance risks.

Examples of market gaps that your solution could address:

• Conceptual coverage models for the liability and downtime of commercial fusion reactors.
• Theoretical frameworks applying quantum cryptography to mitigate systemic cyber and data infrastructure attacks.
• Capital advisory and investment structuring software designed specifically to attract private equity and alternative capital into the Lloyd's ecosystem.