Data discipline is at the core of AdGo’s platform and all its applications. This topic came up when London Market Group chair Sean McGovern appeared as a recent guest on Mark Geoghegan’s Voice of Insurance podcast.

Worrying about the quality and consistency of data is not new; it has been a bugbear of accountants and administrators since ancient times. The London market for insurance isn’t nearly so old, but with so many stakeholders, ensuring consistency in data quality across the market remains a key challenge today.

As a technology provider supporting the London market, AdvantageGo is deeply engaged in the ongoing Lloyd’s Blueprint Two project, delivering the next stage of digitisation to the Lloyd’s market.

One of the bodies helping ensure data discipline is the London Market Group’s Data Council.

Led by Sheila Cameron, CEO of the Lloyd’s Market Association, and supported by a broad spectrum of market experts, it was created to drive digitisation of the London market through a commitment to using standardised and high quality data between all market participants and their clients.

“The Data Council is doing a phenomenal job. Sheila Cameron has done a great job in pulling together stakeholders who need to agree on the future path,” said Sean McGovern, chair of the London Market Group (LMG).

“We’ve achieved some of the milestones we set out to achieve, getting the core data record agreed and now moving forward with the digital market reform contract. We set out clear ambitions and we’re well on the track to achieving those ambitions and achieving that consensus,” said McGovern, speaking as guest of Mark Geoghegan’s Voice of Insurance Podcast, produced in association with AdvantageGo.

The Data Council aims to drive the adoption of:

Data standards in conjunction with ACORD
Open market risk Core Data Records
Computable contracts
The data assembly process, including roles and responsibilities
API standards.

“The LMG’s role in this whole agenda is to corral the market to agree on standards, because it is only one body that can bring together carriers, Lloyds market players and brokers to agree how it is we want to set market standards, particularly around data,” McGovern said.

“I think we’re delivering on that. And then it will be about driving adoption, because again, the London Market Group can bring people together and gain consensus to drive adoption.”

Agreeing data standards is one challenge, McGovern noted, while having the right technology infrastructure in place to support transformation is the domain of the joint venture between Lloyd’s and DXC, and the many providers, such as AdvantageGo.

As already noted in this previous blog, it is in no small part thanks to healthy relationships through the market feedback loop, and a spirit of London market collaboration within the wider community, that Blueprint Two is proceeding towards success.

“It does feel as if there is a concerted effort now, and people are all pointing in the same direction, which hasn’t always been the case with market modernisation. We’re starting to put important stakes in the ground to demonstrate progress. But let’s not be under any illusions: there is still an awfully long way to go; market reform has been much talked about; we’ve had many false dawns; and we don’t want any more,” McGovern said.

“It’s a phenomenally difficult thing, when there are maybe 350-400 firms in the market, to get them all going in roughly the same direction at roughly the same time. That’s not easy to achieve, but it does feel as if we’re making more progress than has been the case in the past,” he added.

VOI Talking Point: The London Market Group’s Data Council