Aon Upgrades E-Trade Platform Amid Virus Disruption

By Lucia Osborne-Crowley
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Law360, London (April 1, 2020, 5:54 PM BST) -- London-based insurer Aon says it is upgrading its online trading platform to enable its insurance business to continue during the coronavirus outbreak.

Aon PLC said Tuesday it enhanced its virtual platform, called ABConnect Placements, and has created a function that allows the software to electronically complete insurance contracts with Lloyd's of London and International Underwriting Association markets. The new platform will be available starting April 1.

"With the global outbreak of COVID-19, electronic and online capabilities play an even more vital role in reinsurance transactions," said Andy Marcell, chief executive of Aon's Reinsurance Solutions business.

Marcell added that the digital platform has "very suddenly become a critical method to place treaty business as we continue to best serve our insurer clients."

The insurer said the upgraded digital platform will allow Lloyd's of London and the International Underwriting Association to complete insurance contracts without any need for face-to-face meetings.

Marcell said this is part of the workforce's shift toward working remotely after the coronavirus, which has now infected more than 700,000 people worldwide and forced all but essential workers to work from home.

Aon said it is communicating with over 10,000 people at different reinsurance companies to tell them about the new system and will instruct them on how to use the upgraded platform.

Nick Frankland, U.K. chief executive of Aon's reinsurance solutions business, said this is a "breakthrough in the modernization of the London market."

The insurance industry began embracing technology prior to the coronavirus crisis.

Lloyd's of London, the specialty market, published a plan in October focusing on how it would adapt to the changing technological landscape. 

The market also announced in May that it had invested in an artificial intelligence startup to ease small-business owners' access to liability insurance, another step in the specialty market's plans to modernize its 330-year-old business. 

Insurance broker Willis Towers found in May that investment in insurance technology in the first three months of 2019 broke the record for the highest number of deals recorded in that time. Global investors injected $1.42 billion into insurance technology companies through 85 deals, the broker said. 

--Additional reporting by Najiyya Budaly. Editing by Alyssa Miller.

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