Insurance and Lloyd's
How has insurance at Lloyd's has changed over the last 300 years?
Lloyd’s and insurance: in the past
Over 300 years ago, Lloyd’s started out in Edward Lloyd’s coffee house as a place where ship owners and merchants could meet with financiers to discuss ways to match the risks they faced at sea with the capital they needed to insure them.
The world has changed a lot in 300 years, but no matter what social, political or economic changes have taken place, Lloyd’s has always provided new types of insurance to meet new needs. We insured the first motorcars in the UK and we were also involved in insuring the first ever commercial space flights.
Lloyd’s was also responsible for the first small-pox insurance. In 1901, Cuthbert Heath came up with the ‘smallpox-if-vaccinated’ insurance plan. This prompted people to get their vaccinations and the world became a little healthier as a result. Later, when insurance companies inserted clauses into their policies demanding crash helmets for motorcyclists and seatbelts for drivers, the travelling public became a little less vulnerable to injury, too.
Lloyd’s and insurance: in the present
Just as when it was a lively coffee house, Lloyd’s remains to this day a place where business is conducted face to face. Like any dynamic, innovative market, it allows those with something to sell (underwriters) to make contact with those who want to buy (brokers, on behalf of their clients).
Today, the Lloyd’s market insures some of the world’s largest, most unique and complicated risks. We accept business from over 200 countries and territories worldwide. From oil rigs and bridges to celebrity body parts, from airlines and sporting events to global banks - millions of people are covered at Lloyd’s.
Lloyd’s specialises in the risks that are the hardest to value and the trickiest to understand. Understanding and pricing complex risk is the heart of our market and we have a global reputation for doing just that.
We continue to pursue ways to improve efficiency and standards of service and work constantly to provide the best cover and greatest security for all parties.
We are the world’s leading market for specialist insurance.
You can read more about our areas of business in What Lloyd’s insures.
