Politics, artificial intelligence and the campaign to get underwriters and brokers back into Lloyd’s Underwriting Room are at the core of broker body LIIBA’s agenda for the year.

Laying the groundwork for a potential change of UK government is a high priority for the organisation, in particular ensuring an incoming government is ‘alive to the importance’ of London’s commercial insurance market to UK economy.

Outlined today, the organisation’s goal is to ensure that whoever is running the UK later this year understands the key role that insurance is key in addressing economic and societal challenges, and is a major contributor to GDP.

LIIBA’s CEO Christopher Croft said: “We need to cement the gains provided by the Financial Services and Markets Act while seeking to ensure that London is not merely the global capital for insurance but also the global capital for risk mitigation and transfer.

Also in the agenda is the convening of a focus group of young broking professionals to produce a report on the impact of AI on the market’s trading systems. This follows from 2023’s focus group and report on the future of face-to-face trading in London.

“Pre-Covid, the future of our trading environment felt a little abstract and reassuringly distant. Today, with rapid advances in AI and the move to flexible working, the future seems to have happened while we were all otherwise engaged. If anything, the market needs to play catch-up,” Croft added.

“By pulling together young, talented brokers from our members, we can tap into the very latest thinking and attitudes – thinking that will be the dominant paradigm in a few short years – to ensure that we shape our future rather than it shapes us.”

The #BackToEC3 campaign, launched last year to encourage a return to face-to-face trading, will also be central to LIIBA’s 2024 programme.

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