The City of London has always been synonymous with the insurance industry. London’s coffee house culture of the 1600s gave rise to the maritime insurance industry and supported Britain’s growth as a global trading power. The world’s first fire insurance companies were formed in the wake of the Great Fire with this new service growing rapidly in the UK and abroad. The first joint-stock insurance companies, the first life insurance companies, insurance for workplace injury, burglary, motor vehicles, loss of profits, trade credit and aviation – all were either created or found their earliest commercial footholds in the London Market.
It was from London that these innovations spread, and the insurance sector became, not just a tool for facilitating international trade, but a UK export industry in its own right. London’s depth in capital and expertise meant the UK insurance market was able to seek out and secure international opportunities in markets around the world from the early 19th century.
The UK insurance industry in 2021 is as important to the country and the wider world as it has been at any time in its four centuries of operation. Employing 300,000 people in the UK, paying over £10 billion in taxation and managing investments of almost £2 trillion – the insurance sector remains one of the jewels in the crown of the UK financial services sector and a vital driver of the UK’s economic engine.
John Glen MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury
Foreword BY
With the UK’s departure from the EU, the country has entered into a new era of international commerce defined by the creation of new trading opportunities and relationships by government and industry. Just as they have done for more than 200 years, London’s insurance firms are adapting to this new environment by exporting product lines, complex policies and unrivalled expertise around the world as a clear example of how a world class industry can make a huge contribution to ‘Global Britain’. This determination to seize the commercial opportunities of a new era runs in parallel to the industry’s capacity to help address some of the big issues the world faces in 2021. The tools and expertise that the UK’s insurance sector can bring to bear to help address challenges like climate change and post- pandemic recovery will demonstrate that the industry’s value to the world goes beyond the purely commercial.
In this document the London Insurance Market: Beyond 2021 insurance industry stakeholders have provided a clear-headed assessment of the challenges the industry faces in 2021, together with compelling propositions for how those challenges can be met. I welcome the ambition, energy and ideas that the authors outline. This report is an important vision of how the London insurance sector can remain pre-eminent in a fiercely competitive international market, and continue to support sustainable prosperity across the globe.