Understanding Lloyd’s – debunking myths on Lime Street

This latest Voice of Insurance podcast features an interview with Dawn Miller, Chief Commercial Officer of Lloyd’s and CEO of Lloyd’s Americas.

Dawn Miller is the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Lloyd’s of London. She is also the Lloyd’s Americas CEO, making her doubly busy. Her recent appearance on the Voice of Insurance podcast spent some time debunking misconceptions about Lloyd’s, in the market and beyond.

It takes time to communicate changes within the market, she acknowledges.

One perception or misperception has been about how easy or hard it is for new entrants to join the Lloyd’s market, via whichever route or hub.

“At the end of 2023 we approved a new participant into the marketplace in less than nine weeks,” Miller says.

Her role is about “curating performance” at Lloyd’s, which has included a transition from a rules-based system to principles-based oversight.

“It wasn’t easy, but through incredible talent of our teams here, I’ve shifted that to principles-based oversight, with 13 different thresholds to look at everything from performance, to claims, to culture, to investments,” she says.

“A rising tide, raises all boats, right? You continuously push positive performance, and then you have a framework that makes then bringing on new entrants even easier,” she adds.

Her priorities are all about communication, ensuring everyone understands the Lloyd’s network, the path for new entrants, and the changes that have taken place in the Lloyd’s market in recent years, as well as continuing to drive operational efficiencies.

“The more interest you have, and the more new distribution comes in to feed the great underwriting businesses here, the more we’re obliged to make sure the operating platform is as crisp as possible and as clear as possible, and to clean away the cobwebs,” she says.

Miller has had a storied career. She worked for the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the US government entity for investing in development in emerging economies. Then she became a political risk broker for Willis, before getting into the energy business as an entrepreneur in eastern Europe.

She summarises most of her former positions as “P&L [profit and loss centres] and development roles”. At AIG, she moved to roles “across the world” in thirteen years, rising to be the insurer’s head of client engagement for Europe, Middle East and Africa, then to AXA Insurance Company as president and CEO. Several years and roles at Chubb saw her take on country manager and regional executive roles with responsibility for Switzerland and the Middle East and North Africa.

“My passion really always sits with the emerging markets, regardless of where I work,” she says.

At Lloyd’s she is dual-hatted, holding the central role of the market’s CCO, as well as being the CEO of Lloyd’s Americas, which encompasses not just the US but both Continents of the western hemisphere, a role she recently added to her business card.

First she explains the CCO role, which is where the debunking of myths comes in. Her teams include the licencing and regulatory teams, as well as things like Lloyd’s Lab and Academy.

“The corporation serves our managing agents, the marketplace we’re curating, regulating and providing services for,” Miller says.

She explains that “the garden” for managing agents needs to be a fair playing field.

“The best underwriters can write as much business as they want, distributors from around the world can find us, and our other stakeholders and partners can understand us,” she adds.

Her Lloyd’s Americas CEO role is a key one for the market, given that 60% of Lloyd’s premium derives from risks in the Americas, and in recent years, Lloyd’s has been a major beneficiary of the volume of US risks exiting the admitted market and instead being placed in the excess and surplus lines (E&S) market, within which swim many Lloyd’s commercial and specialty lines carriers.

“Over the last 15 years, we have put a strong footprint into the US market, working through the different associations, surplus lines associations, deploying an education framework, so the distribution partners in the US understand how to access our marketplace through whatever avenue they choose, but trying to own our own story,” she said.

Continuing to establish Lloyd’s “more firmly” in the US is a priority, she emphasised, “demystifying what it means to be a 330-year-old institution from the UK”, with focuses on talent, distribution, and dialogue on “legal system abuse”.

Rather than lobbying, this is a matter of “creating clarity about who we are”, Miller underlines, marketing work, and “demystifying that journey” for brokers and other service providers.

“It’s equipping all distribution partners – wherever they sit in that chain – with information so they know what Lloyd’s is, how to access it, its attributes and services provided,” she says.

Lloyd’s contains many entities that are not operating from the traditional boxes within its Underwriting Room, she stresses, able to operate within its network from bases across the world, operating from the global network of various hubs and operating licences that the market has built, and which Miller is responsible for managing.

Lloyd’s is not the answer for every corporate need, but knowing it’s available as an option is at the core of what Miller is trying to do, and nowhere does this matter more than in the US market.

“We as an executive team firmly believe that there’s room for Lloyds in the strategic toolkit, for all the world’s best underwriters, we should never be replacing anyone’s approach, never be replacing a local marketplace, but a strategic alternative in your toolkit,” she adds.