2030 Vision: How AI and Data Are Rewiring the London Market

The year is 2030. James, a placement broker from Marsh, enters an insurance ticker into his trading terminal. 

Within seconds, the dashboard lights up. It shows all the key information, such as the lead insurer’s premium price, rate on line and percentage of risk they are willing to take. The follow-on market is directly underneath with their offers. Throughout the day, the data changes instantly as new players enter and existing players change their offers or even exit. It’s much like a Reuters equities trading terminal.

This kind of real-time transparency is exactly where Anthony Siggers, Marsh’s digital leader, believes the London insurance market is headed.

Siggers, speaking on the Voice of Insurance podcast to Mark Geoghegan, holds a vision for the future that can be trusted. Siggers is a Cambridge Graduate who headed Willis global broking operations and started his own AI-driven commercial property risk platform, Archipelago Analytics.

He predicted: “We anticipate a world where our brokers have a trading screen not dissimilar to The Bloomberg, to the Reuters, you see in equities trading. Every risk they are working on will be in that trading screen. They will be able to automate a lot of activities they do. Especially around the follow-on market through the trading screen.

“So it becomes a can fire out requests for indications with a single click, the entire follow market is probably hooked-up digitally to come back with their VRIs (Very Rough Indications), so I can see everything in the trading screen.”

Brave new world 

In a wide-ranging interview, Siggers displayed enthusiasm for the potential of a digital future with London as a cutting-edge Insurtech global hub.

“There is exponential change coming. AI, obviously, but there is so many other things. It could be DNA synthesis, quantum computing, fusion power, all these things are happening. So there’s just an environment of change.”

Technological disruption has triggered societal unease at the role of humans in an AI dominated workplace, but Siggers is optimistic. 

He envisions brokers reaping the rewards. Time will be freed up to negotiate better terms or innovate for solutions to close the protection gap.

“I know that brokers spend around 35% of their time on the follow market, chasing down follow lines. So if we were able to do this and make it a single click, then of course they could redeploy that time to more value add activities.”

Marsh digital progress 

While Marsh is keen to expand its digital throughflow, Siggers notes the current progress.

Marsh has a partnered digital placement platform called Whitespace, which means the bulk of insurance business can be completed there online such as submissions of risks, real-time quote negotiation, contract terms and binding.

Siggers explained: “We put $15bn of premium into the market. 70% of our entire flow last month went through the Whitespace platform and was fully digitalised.”

Espousing the over-arching Marsh digital strategy, Siggers enthused: “The fundamental shift we have to make is stop trading through documents and start trading through data. We’re basically an analogue industry.”

London market

Siggers brimmed with optimism about the London market’s future. He highlighted how the start-up community can thrive using AI to solve so many of their issues – such as capital, human resource and time.

AI can reshape and reinvigorate the workplace.

He enthused: “I can’t stress enough how exciting a time it is to be in the London market. We’re doing things which are unique here from anywhere else in the world.

“It is a fantastic time. And so if you are in the market, I would just encourage you to embrace change. Be curious. If you’re not in the market, again what a fantastic time to come in. And by the way, if you do, you will love it.”