Any concerns that face-to-face transactions in the London market would disappear with electronic transactions are being allayed with placement of the first electronic, fully placed contract—a property facultative deal—via iPad and the Message Exchange, BMS said.
Steve Knight, BMS direct & facultative director, walked into Lloyd's in mid-January, met with Catlin Syndicate's Michael Davern at their box, and "within minutes had refined and placed a contract using the RI3K platform on his iPad," according to BMS.
"The introduction of the iPad allows us to maintain the hugely important tradition of face-to-face contact in the London market," Mr. Knight said in a statement. "There was a concern that this would be lost with increased use of electronic placing. Now we have the initiative and tools which mean we can retain the contact while making the whole process exponentially more efficient."
He added that brokers will no longer have to "shoulder heavy briefcases of files over to Lloyd's."
"They can be nimble and flexible with only 1.6 pounds of iPad, which is all they really need in the market," he said.
"Business can happen anywhere," he continued. "Using this system, a contract can be created on the train on the way to work or over a coffee. It has changed the way we work dramatically."
Independent broker BMS said it has been working with Lloyd's on its iPad initiative, alongside the Qatarlyst-owned RI3K paperless trading service, to integrate the implementation of the new technology within the London market.
BMS marketing and communications officer Ryan Phillips told NU in an e-mail that BMS placing brokers can now "present the risk from the iPad instead of a paper slip but also have access to the entire BMS library of information regarding the risk, not just the immediate details of the risk being placed."
He continued that the library of information includes, for example, "details of previous years, access to survey reports, immediate link to Google Earth and multimedia related to the risk."
"When the underwriter wishes to write their line, they access the risk either via the RI3k desktop or via their own underwriting systems which have been updated via the London Exchange."
He added that all iPads used by BMS have been purchased by BMS as a standard part of the business technology offered to its placing staff. BMS, he said, currently has 10 iPads in use, "and we expect this to increase significantly during 2011."
Whether the market will embrace the iPad is "driven by business desire," Roger Foord, managing director of Roger Foord Associates in London, an independent consultant specializing in technology in the London and global reinsurance markets, told NU.
"The London market does not take technology to its breast, but it does make its own mind up if there is a good idea—for example, the BlackBerry," he noted.
BMS said that alongside Lloyd's and RI3K, it is "trading using a sustainable, developed business model with widespread use of the technology which has been fully integrated into business and systems processes. In the past, electronic trading has relied on paper copies of contract information to support the process. This new step is entirely electronic."
Sue Langley, Lloyd's director of market operations, said, "It is great to see so many steps coming together with the risk placed on an iPad in the room, sent directly over the Exchange into a managing agent's system and back into a broker's system."
"Face-to-face and technology—the perfect partnership," she said.
RI3K Market Place Director Robin Merttens said that BMS is the first to have "grasped the power of RI3K and an iPad," adding that BMS brokers "don't feel threatened by the technology but empowered by it." "
They now carry around an e-slipcase loaded with all their placing information and by e-mail and integration are connected to the people and systems they need to access. So now they can spend more time on face-to-face negotiations and value-added services while the technology does the rest."
Catlin underwriter Michael Davern said Catlin strives to make life easier for brokers. "Placing risks via an iPad promises to add both speed and flexibility to the traditional broker-underwriter relationship," he said. "Technological advancements like this optimize the way in which the market works."
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