Lloyd's gets direct insurance license in China

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Sergio Ulloa (G+)  | Tags: Lloyds

Lloyd's China has received approval from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission to broaden its business activities, including a license with which to write direct insurance policies. Prior to obtaining approval for engaging in direct insurance business, Lloyd's was limited to reinsurance through Lloyd's Reinsurance Company (China). The new license allows Lloyd's to expand beyond their current business of providing product solutions and increasing business capacity through their reinsurance products into products which may become available for brokers to sell to consumers. The news was announced by the Lord Peter Levene, the Chairman of Lloyd's at the UK Pavilion in the World Expo in Shanghai, who said that "This is a very significant development for both Lloyd's and the Chinese insurance market. We are most grateful to the CIRC for their help and to the Shanghai Municipal Government. This will be a further important building block in the development of Shanghai as a major international financial and maritime centre." Lloyd's is not the only foreign reinsurer to see growth in China recently, as Scor SE received a composite insurance license in April from the CIRC which allows it to expand its reinsurance business to encompass life and health insurance in addition to their non-life business offerings. Insurance Companies Mentioned: Lloyd's Lloyd's is the world's leading specialist insurance market and occupies fifth place in terms of global reinsurance premium income, and is the second largest surplus lines insurer in the US. In 2009, 74 syndicates are underwriting insurance at Lloyd's, covering all classes of business from more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Lloyd's is regulated by the Financial Service Authority. Scor SE SCOR is now a multinational Group, born from the merger between the SCOR Group, with its strong presence in France and the United States, Revios, which was based in Cologne, and Converium, whose headquarters were in Zurich. The new SCOR group had to take this polycentric situation into consideration in terms of its organisational structure, in order to align this with the diverse cultural practices attached to the three former companies. The Group also had to factor in the details of its 2007 statutory reorganisation around three Societas Europeae in paris, as well as the fact that SCOR Global Investments, the Group's third operating company, was created at the beginning of 2009 and is also adopting Societas Europaea status. SCOR therefore decided to structure its entities around six life and non-life management platforms or Hubs, attached to which are the subsidiaries and branches of the geographic area in question.