Lloyd’s offers wordings repository to whole market

Lloyd’s, the world’s leading specialist insurance market, is providing all underwriters and brokers with the option of electronic access to vetted model wordings when creating and reviewing slips.

It has adopted the wordings repository managed by the Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) to make it available to all businesses, enhancing clarity and efficiency throughout the market.

The repository is the most comprehensive, single source of pre-vetted wordings available in the market. It contains around 2,000 model wordings in all lines of business, which are vetted by Lloyd’s market wordings specialists.

With the LMA’s agreement, Lloyd’s has partnered with leading technology provider ISO to take forward the repository built and launched in late 2006 by leading Lloyd’s managing agents and the LMA.

Lloyd’s will make the repository available to all Lloyd’s managing agents, via licence, from 1 July 2007. Brokers are also encouraged to use it, and can arrange access via ISO.

Rolf Tolle, Lloyd’s Franchise Performance Director, said:

“This is another significant step towards making Lloyd’s an easier place to do business, building on what the LMA has already achieved. We are providing the market with the tools it needs to draw up and check contracts in the most modern and efficient way, helping to ensure that contracts are clear and complete from the moment they are signed. This is a big step towards helping the market achieve Pre-Bind Quality Assurance.

“The repository contains wordings from underwriters in the market, and I would encourage brokers to sign up for access to it and to add their own wordings too. This will make wordings electronically-accessible to brokers and underwriters, speeding up placement, enhancing contract quality and reducing paperwork.”

ISO Senior Vice President Kevin Thompson, said:

“We are pleased to be extending our relationship with Lloyd’s and the London market and look forward to assisting firms seeking greater certainty in policy wordings. This enhanced relationship reflects positively on the value of our products.”

Notes to editors

1. The Lloyd’s Wordings Repository provides the following functionality:

largest single source of model wordings vetted by Lloyd’s market professionals.
site for the storage (by brokers and insurers) of regularly used wordings.
sponsored sections of the Repository allocated to individual firms if required.
simple and advanced searches filtering to the required wordings.
details on wordings and links to associated wordings, with comments.
document views and downloads.


2. It is the next step in Lloyd’s drive to ensure Pre-Bind Quality Assurance (PBQA) - improvements to documentation and contract checking which take effect from 1 July. These changes will mean that stage two checks, currently undertaken by Xchanging, will cease and that the checking of documentation will be done pre-bind, with the aim of ensuring that our customers are receiving complete and accurate contracts. However, the pre-vetted wordings are not binding or recommended for use in particular circumstances and market participants remain absolutely free to offer any wordings to their customers to ensure competition within the market.

3. Within the repository there are currently around 2,000 pre-vetted wordings in the shared core section. It is expected that over the coming months, managing agents and brokers will opt to use the shared core for vetted wordings, or may use the facility to store their own wordings in their own sponsored sections of the repository. As the repository uses the latest technology, access is easy and wordings can be located quickly using the detailed search capability.

4. ISO is a leading provider of products and services that help measure, manage, and reduce risk. ISO provides data, analytics, and decision-support solutions to professionals in many fields, including insurance, finance, real estate, health services, government, and human resources. Clients use ISO’s databases and services to classify and evaluate a variety of risks and detect potential fraud. In the United States and around the world, ISO’s services help customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information, please visit www.iso.com.