Gross Written Premiums rise 8% to £28.4bn in London company market

Gross written premiums (GPWs) in the London company market rose more than 8 percent to £28.4 billion in 2018, helped by improved market conditions, said the International Underwriting Association (IUA).

GPW in London was £19.56 billion, while a further £8.87 billion was identified as written in other locations, but overseen and managed by London operations. The overall total of £28.44 billion was an increase of 8.1% on the previous year, and comes on top of a 16% surge reported for 2017.

Dave Matcham, chief executive of the IUA, said: “Improved market conditions and more effective pricing strategies in a number of different business classes have clearly helped drive another healthy growth in premium across the company market sector. Our members are pursuing effective business strategies to expand in specific sectors and have been successful in acquiring important new clients.”

The London Company Market Statistics Report 2019 also looked at the impact of Brexit on future datasets, with many companies having established new insurance entities across continental Europe in advance of the original March 31 deadline for the UK to leave the EU.

The publication confirms recent media reports of new business being generated through European branches and the amount of controlled business written in Europe (excluding UK and Ireland) increased by 9.2 percent to a total of £4.890 billion in 2018.

Matcham added: “The data returns for this year’s report cover a period before the implementation of most Brexit contingency plans. Such is the diversity of London Market business models, however, it is already certain that Brexit will impact different firms in quite different ways. London is at the heart of an intricate web of cross-border business which is set to become even more complex.”

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