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David Rowland, the man who saved the Lloyd's of London insurance market from collapse in the 1990s, died at age 85.
Rowland became president of the insurance market in 1993, when the growing number of claims related to asbestos and environmental pollution in the United States put Lloyd's on its knees. Many of the "names" – people who had put money to guarantee insurance contracts with unlimited liability – were facing personal financial ruin.
In this context, Rowland put in place a program called Reconstruction and Renewal, which brought together old claims into a new company called Equitas.
It has also paved the way for a revolution in how the market is self-financing – from an elitist club to a professional exchange – when specialized insurance companies have begun to replace their names.
Bruce Carnegie-Brown, president of Lloyd's, said in a note to the market that Rowland "played a crucial role in protecting the future of the Lloyd's market for perhaps the most difficult period".
Rowland began his career in 1956 as an insurance broker with Stewart Wrightson, Willis Faber and later Sedgwick. In 1991, he was appointed to lead a working group on the growing issues facing Lloyd's.
These problems proved to be much worse than expected. In addition to the rapid increase in the number of claims from the United States, it has become clear that the habit of repeatedly reducing risks between many Lloyd's unions – known as the LMX Spiral – had left deep uncertainties as to the ultimate responsibility for payment. The law project.
Lloyd's governing body reacted by appointing Rowland as president. Previously, the role was essentially ceremonial, but Rowland was, in the words of Hiscox's president and CEO, Bronek Masojada, an "executive chairman."
The result was four years of effort to resolve, resolve and solve the problems Lloyd's faced while settling their claims with names claiming their negligence and arousing keen interest from politicians and regulators on both sides of the border. Atlantic. In his account of the crisis, On the edgeAndrew Duguid, the author, said, "It was a Rubik cube, with little room for trial and error."
Failure would have meant the collapse of Lloyd's, bringing with it London's position as the center of the global insurance industry. It could also have led to the government of John Major: several MPs were names and were threatened with bankruptcy, which would have forced them to resign. At the time, the government was blocked by an extremely small majority.
Rowland fulfills her task with a mix of charm, humor and strength of conviction underpinned with a bitter determination when needed. "His communication skills were second to none," said Masojada de Hiscox.
The people who worked with Rowland said that he had solved the problem not by imposing his own solutions, but by bringing together those who could propose one. "He was a supreme politician," said Mr Duguid. "He was very good at judging the weight of the forces at work and balancing them."
Nevertheless, it took time to create a plan that was acceptable to all stakeholders – names, clients, insurance professionals, politicians and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.
The first attempt failed. In the words of his colleague and longtime friend Michael Wade: "Rowland has kept her cool. What he could have called "pause and reflection" is a complete underestimation of the real threats ahead. "
The second attempt – Reconstruction and Renewal – was revolutionary. First, it has incorporated all the old commitments into the new Equitas vehicle, which some people liken to the "dubious banks" created during the financial crisis ten years later. It was a move that required the approval of the government and the consent of US regulators.
Secondly, this led to an increase in the capital of companies in the market, so that it was no longer necessary to rely on individual names. Before Rowland became president, more than 30,000 names accounted for the largest share of Lloyd's capital. Today, there are only a few thousand names that provide 10% of the market capital.
The new structure, say some people in the market, has allowed Lloyd's to survive the scale of claims advanced after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
At this point, Rowland had left Lloyd's. He retired from the market in 1997 and was knighted a year later. He was then president of NatWest before the takeover of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2000 and also worked on the restoration of the 200-year-old Theater Royal Bury St Edmunds.
Rowland suffered a stroke in 2017. He is survived by his wife Diana, his son Mark and his six grandchildren.
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