Innovation at Lloyd’s: Conversation with Chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for innovative solutions more than ever before, and the insurance industry has an urgent and vital role in helping the world’s economies move forward and prepare for challenging risks, according to Lloyd’s Chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown.

In a Q&A moderated by Hank Watkins, Regional Director & President of Lloyd’s Americas, Bruce discussed the future of innovation for insurance following the pandemic and elaborated on the various steps taken by Lloyd’s to lead the global insurance industry’s response to COVID-19.

One of the initiatives he touched on is Lloyd’s new platform, Futureset, which aims to bring forth greater understanding and collaboration to innovate for risks customers face today, and for those just emerging. In response to the devastating impact of COVID-19, the Futureset platform will pool the world’s leading experts to evaluate systemic risks and develop products that can build resilience for pandemic, cyber-risks, climate change and beyond. Bruce added that Lloyd’s has a unique convening power as a market to bring various experts and participants together, and this is one of the ways the Corporation of Lloyd’s is being front footed in its approach to plan for the future.

Another theme of the event was the importance of partnerships with brokers, underwriters, and customers as an enabler of innovation – a principle that the Lloyd’s Lab, an innovation incubator that connects start-ups with mentors in the market to test out new ideas, is built on. Bruce described how such partnerships can come to life in his remarks about the fantastic progress made in insuring global transportation of the COVID-19 vaccine across the supply chain. Lloyd’s has partnered with IoT company and Lloyd’s coverholder Parsyl, a graduate of the Lab’s first cohort in 2018, and manufacturer of sensors designed to monitor conditions inside cargo containers and track their movement in real time. Working together and with the support of Ascot, AXA XL and other syndicates at Lloyd’s, we established the Global Health Risk Facility, a public-private collaboration to help protect and support the storage and transportation of critical medical supplies, including temperature sensitive COVID-19 vaccines as they are rolled out across emerging markets globally.

“To get the world vaccinated, the vaccines have to go great distances, and we now have a partnership to increase the pace of delivery by protecting the companies taking the risks to get [them] deployed around the world,” said Bruce.

In addition to innovation and the pandemic, the conversation also touched on Lloyd’s environmental and social governance (ESG) commitments and its work to create a more inclusive culture in the company. The event, which is available for playback on Lloyd’s YouTube channel, is the latest in a series of “Tuesdays with Lloyd’s” webinars with the theme of staying connected during the pandemic.