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Law360, London (April 9, 2020, 3:07 PM BST) -- The London Market Group has reported a surge in insurers and brokers using its online trading platform after the traditional face-to-face dealings were suspended in response last month to the spreading coronavirus.
The LMG, a marketwide body representing insurers in London, said the number of users visiting its e-trade platform Placing Platform Ltd. has soared 40% since March 14 as firms have moved to remote working during the coronavirus lockdown.
"All the statistics show that usage and adoption are growing at pace," Susan Jakobek, managing director of Placing Platform Ltd., said Wednesday. "Even more importantly, the experience is proving to be positive with brokers commenting on the good response times from underwriters."
Jakobek said March 31st was a record-breaking day for the online trading platform. Brokers and underwriters placed 5,600 risks in last week, which is 2,000 more than the previous weekly record.
The e-trading hub also attracted 550 new users in one fortnight, around 200 higher than the average fortnight. The LMG said it has also seen a "steady flow" of new companies wishing to join the platform, with two new contracts agreed in March and a further nine under negotiation.
Jakobek said the market's ability to respond well to the remote working conditions enforced during the pandemic is a result of collaboration between insurers, brokers and underwriters.
"The market built this platform and it is great that it can support everyone in these extraordinary times," she said.
The news comes after Fitch Ratings downgraded the outlook for London's specialty market, most of which is traded through Lloyd's, from stable to negative as it expected the remote working rules to hit the market hard.
The ratings agency said the closure of the Lloyd's of London underwriting room, which takes up four floors of the market's offices at its landmark 1 Lime Street base and is used by around 5,000 people a day, would disrupt the business.
The market introduced Placing Platform Ltd in 2016 but it had been slow to catch on, until the unexpected spike in users during lockdown.
Fitch said the pandemic could put Lloyd's broader modernization project, called Future at Lloyd's, at risk.
"The rapid spread of COVID-19 could increase operational risks for the implementation of the Future at Lloyd's project, which aims to modernize the market and make it more cost efficient," Fitch said in March.
A spokesman from Lloyd's reaffirmed the commitment to the corporation's modernization program in March. The plan was announced in October and involves total of six ideas, including a new electronic risk exchange. that will be introduced over several phrases beginning in 2020.
--Additional reporting by Martin Croucher. Editing by Rebecca Flanagan.
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