The Cinderella Story

With the title of this post I refer not to the beginning of the college basketball tournament in the U.S. which begins today and is known for the "Cinderella stories" of overachieving college teams, but rather to a story in today's Advisen Front Page News quoting Lord Levene, Chairman of Lloyd's.



Levene hits on two of my favorite themes about Lloyd's - the need for paperless processing (see my posts on the subject here) and the tension among old and new capacity providers at Lloyd's in today's soft market (see my recent post here).



In discussing how progress has been made in ending the van runs from Lime Street, Levene notes that there is a long way to go before paperless processing is a reality and hints at the fact that the insurance industry could be at a competitive disadvantage to other capital providers such as the investment banks pouring money into the industry and securitizing policies. I love this quote from Lord Levene:

'If we are to end our status as a Cinderella industry we have to improve
the quality of our systems.'

Advisen has invested in Web Connectivity which enables paperless processing through its award-winning ACORD messaging gateway EnabledB2B.



And answering the complaints (of Mr. Hiscox and Mr. Catlin) about allowing new money into Lloyd's, in affirming how Lloyd's has agreed to manage the cycle through the Franchise Directorate, Levene said:

'I think there is an extreme lack of candor in this industry.'

The story can be found here.