London’s growth will come from “people, expertise and smarter use of data” – LSM’s Prato

President of Liberty Specialty Markets in the UK and MENA and CEO of Liberty Managing Agency at Lloyd’s Luis Prato explains how London should grow even as the market softens and continues its digital transformation and AI projects.

London felt like home to Luis Prato long before he oversaw businesses writing more than two and a half billion dollars of premium, he told host Mark Geoghegan during the latest episode of The Voice of Insurance podcast.

He arrived from Caracas, Venezuela, more than thirty years ago with an engineering degree and a government scholarship that allowed him to study in the city he calls “the mecca of insurance”.

“I discovered insurance accidentally. I needed to earn a bit of money during my studies, and I worked part time for a local insurer doing simple risk engineering work,” he told the podcast.

The early exposure shaped a career built on technical strength and an instinct for people, he emphasised.

That experience persuaded him to stay in the sector. “As soon as I finished my engineering degree, I decided that was the industry I wanted to work in,” he said. “I’ve been here since the early nineties. I never went home. I’ve been here since.”

His career took him through engineering roles, distribution, and an underwriting focus on specialty lines and energy business.

Two years ago, he joined Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM), taking on the role of CEO of LSM’s Lloyd’s business and president for its UK and Middle East and North African activities.

His role involves leads roughly 400 people across the insurer’s Dubai, London and regional UK hubs.

LSM’s mission

Prato stressed that LSM wants to be viewed as a leading specialty carrier with a reputation not just for expertise but collaboration, with strong relationships and partnerships.

Prato emphasised that LSM prioritises consistency for its brand and culture across the market. “There are things we already are that we would like to keep being. One of them is being recognised for expertise and leadership,” he said.

Another is people. “We are a company that is recognised for being very good around people. Every decision we make, high up on the list of factors to consider, is the impact on the people,” he said.

Market change means adaptation, he acknowledged. “We are cognisant that the market is evolving quickly. The role of carriers, the role of brokers, the role of the market as infrastructure, is changing fast,” he said. “It is an opportunity for us to reflect on what we want to keep being and what we want to be new.”

“We want to continue to be leaders in the market, creating value through our underwriting, not at the expense of being a great place to work, and we want to be part of this new movement that incorporates new systems, processes and tools,” Prato added.

Baby steps for AI

LSM is starting to explore algorithmic and automated digital approaches to underwriting, albeit cautiously, he revealed, as many in the market experiment with artificial intelligence (AI).

“The steps we are taking are baby steps,” he said. “Some of what we do today is ripe to accept some degree of automation. I am going to stop short of saying full automation because I do not think much of what we do is ready for that.”

The rationale is practical, rather than aggressive in its ambitions, he suggested. “It’s about being up to date, being at the forefront…so that we can lead the market,” he said.

AI experimentation is underway across underwriting, claims and client facing roles. “The first steps we are taking are to assist with underwriting, to use AI to learn from our engineering information and to help digest enormous volumes of data,” he said.

Claims management is also ripe for greater automation efforts, he suggested.

“We are using AI to read first notices of loss and help identify points of correlation. Patterns that were not identified before can become visible,” he said.

The potential is exponential, of course, as development of technology and its rollout accelerates.

“The risk landscape is changing very quickly. We can rely less on statistics to help us understand the risk of today. AI could sense real time risk and find trend changes,” Prato added.

Soft market potential

The commercial re/insurance market is softening, Prato acknowledged, but his comments suggested room for growth.

“It has reached and maybe slightly passed the point of inflection. I still think 2025 and maybe even 2026 will be solid trading years,” he said.

Cycle management is embedded into LSM’s approach. “We are measuring things we were not measuring before. We are deciding beforehand what actions we will take when certain triggers get hit,” he said.

“We want to be first movers. We do not believe the cycles will be any less pronounced in the future,” he continued.

Opportunities remain despite an emerging and evolving risk environment, picking cyber as a line of business that has been soft for some time.

“There is plenty of opportunity to grow in cyber. Anything in demand as a result of changes to the energy systems or the enormous amounts of investment going into infrastructure,” he said.

London’s competitive advantage still rests on its human core, he stressed, which technology is there to serve.

“Markets like London create special value on the back of relationships, and those relationships are difficult to build in any other way than being in front of each other,” Prato added.