Culture of the marketplace — an inside view of Lloyds

ANZIIF has launched a new short course exploring the workings of Lloyd’s. Team members, Emma Loynes and Natalie Whitbread discuss their roles within the global marketplace.

A visit to the Lloyd’s of London underwriting room in the early days of Emma Loynes’s insurance career made a strong impression. She knew straight away this was a company she wanted to work for.

“I was completely blown away by Lloyd's: the building, the trading floor, the concept of how it works,” she says. “I thought, I don't want to finish my career not working at Lloyd's.”

Though she spent the next 22 years with RSA Insurance, taking on senior leadership roles including Commercial Operations director and head of Commercial Schemes, Loynes eventually joined the Lloyd’s team in 2018 as senior manager of Market Oversight and Delivery.

Two years later, she was promoted to head of Market Development Transformation. When the opportunity arose in June 2023 to become the new country manager for Lloyd’s in Singapore, as well as CEO of Lloyd’s Asia, she was quick to put her hand up.

An ecosystem for trade

Lloyd’s Asia is the market’s largest underwriting hub outside of London and a core component of Singapore’s regional (re)insurance centre, serving brokers and clients across the Asia Pacific. The Singapore platform comprises more than 350 staff representing 15 syndicates.

“Managing agents of syndicates in London have set up service companies in Singapore to enable them to do business,” explains Loynes. “Our job is to operate a platform to allow those service companies to underwrite and trade their business. We provide the ecosystem that enables them to do that.”

Loynes compares her role to that of an ambassador, advocating the value Lloyd's brings to the territories it operates in.

“I interact with regulators, with chambers of commerce, with lots of different distribution partners, brokers and coverholders,” she says.

“It's fascinating to have a role where you can influence and work with people, to be able to promote what Lloyd's is capable of — the opportunities it can give you as an organisation, working with Lloyd's, and how our licensing structure is set up specifically to provide people with unique access to trading opportunities that they wouldn't have working in other markets.”

Experts working collaboratively

Singapore’s service company community, which relies on a vast number of experienced individuals working collaboratively, is something that Loynes is particularly proud of.

“It’s exciting to work alongside them, learn from them, and make sure that as a team, our business and strategic objectives are aligned and that we are supporting one another — it’s great to see that we’re creating a very strong, very profitable, very effective platform,” she says.

Collaboration is likewise a critical part of the work Natalie Whitbread undertakes as customer standards manager for Lloyd’s in Australia and New Zealand — and a skill she recommends anyone wanting to work for the marketplace should nurture.

“Engaging with stakeholders is a huge part of everyone’s job, no matter what you’re doing at Lloyd’s,” she says. “You have to be able to build trust and relationships. If you can do that, you’ll work collaboratively with your colleagues and more effectively with the market.”

Though Whitbread studied law at university and worked for a law firm after finishing her degree, it wasn’t long before she made the move to insurance — a sector she was already familiar with, having worked as a claims consultant throughout her studies.

She accepted an underwriting position with a Lloyd’s coverholder, where she was also involved with internal dispute resolution, which led to interactions with the Lloyd’s team. Six years ago, she joined their ranks.

Overseeing conduct and culture

For her first three years at Lloyd’s, Whitbread worked in the disputes team, but in 2020 she began her current role, which was created after a raft of new legislation and obligations were enacted as a result of the royal commission.

“I am responsible for oversight of the Australian and New Zealand market’s conduct and culture, which is those items that are above and beyond the black letter law,” she explains.

“My role is often fed by issues identified by our disputes team when they are reviewing files. I will pick up items that are problematic or potentially systemic and work with the coverholder or DCA [Delegated Claims Administrator] to improve.

"Supporting managing agents are made aware of issues so that they can have oversight over the remediation.”

A large part of Whitbread’s work involves making sure the market is aware of and complying with the General Insurance Code of Practice in Australia and the Fair Insurance Code in New Zealand.

“This is both reactive — issues identified via the disputes team or external sources — and proactive, surveying the market on their processes and frameworks,” she says.

Supporting growth

Like Loynes, Whitbread works with a range of stakeholders, explaining: “I enjoy working with the managing agents, hearing about their processes and their frameworks and how that feeds into their oversight over the coverholders and DCAs,” Whitbread enthuses.

She is also proud of the role she plays in encouraging coverholders and DCAs to think above the black letter law — and, more broadly, shaping the insurance sector.

“I like that we work for the market,” she says. “We support growth; we’re not directly responsible for it, but everything we do supports the growth of the market and the culture of the market, which I love.”

Find out more about our Lloyd's Demystified short course