This story is from January 18, 2018

‘From space tourists to Uber, we insure it’

‘From space tourists to Uber, we insure it’
Mumbai: Inga Beale who took charge as CEO of Lloyds in 2013, was the first woman in its 325-year history to do so. The London-based institution, which is described as the birthplace of modern insurance, inaugurated its Indian operations this week in Mumbai. Beale, on Wednesday also inaugurated a Global Skills and Knowledge Centre launched by Global Insurance Brokers and spoke to TOI on the opportunities in India.

How is the Indian office coming along?
We only got the licence last April and yesterday (Tuesday) we launched the new office space. We will have two syndicates — MS Amlin and Markel (syndicates are Lloyds members who underwrite risks). We have 86 syndicates in London, 22 in Singapore, and 32 in China after being there for 10 years. We have $220 million in revenue from India annually, which will grow. There are very few countries in the world where there is double-digit growth and you sure have it here.
What are the opportunities you see in India?
When you look at the insurance penetration here, it is much lower on the general side than in other countries in the world. So, there is going to be a huge explosion of insurance here. The reason it is so important is that for every 1% increase in insurance penetration, you have a 13% reduction in taxpayer’s liabilities if disaster strikes, and 2% growth in GDP. We have done some analysis around this.
When do you think the inflection point will come?

A lot of it has started with the government making some classes of insurance mandatory. In many countries, that is how things started out and when people see the advantage, they tend to protect their own assets. There is a growing middle class here, many owning homes for the first time and they would want to protect it.
How does Lloyd plan to retain its edge given that there are many providers of insurance capital worldwide?
Yes there are. But we do very specialised insurance. We do not do mainstream motor insurance. We used to when it was new. We were the first market to insure a motor car. In those days, because we had always insured ships, when the first motor car was on land, we described it as a vessel with wheels. Now, since it has become mainstream, we don’t do this any more. We insured the first aeroplane, the first satellite, the first cyber attack. If you fast forward to today’s world and think of the risks that businesses face — hacking, cyber attacks — we have a third of the global market and revenues of $1.2 billion. There will always be a place for Lloyds because we will do the next biggest risk that comes along.
Will Lloyds be the first to insure re-launchable rockets and driverless cars?
Yes. When there was a proposal to have space tourists, we were insuring it. We insure the sharing economy, whether it’s Uber in the US or elsewhere we are insuring that.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA