After months of brinksmanship, Lloyd’s Chairman Sax Riley has admitted that the recently announced plan to buy the market’s 12,000 unlimited liability Names out needs to be “rethought”. It’s a big turnaround for Mr Riley, but the opposition has been stiffer than he had foreseen.

In a letter to the Names, he said Lloyd’s has decided to broaden the scope of its modernisation plans and move away from the “one size fits all” mindset.

Michael Deeny, Chairman of the Association of Lloyd’s Members, was gracious in his group’s victory, suggesting the dump-the-Names move was only an idea, not a hard and fast policy. After all, Names have been around Lloyd’s for 314 years.

One major stumbling block to the plan was the reluctance of the market’s managing agents to dip into their own pockets to buy the Names out. They reasoned that the money could be better spent building up capacity.

As Mr Deeny noted, the Names don’t see themselves as the problem. “We think the problem at Lloyd’s is that some syndicates have had huge losses,” he said. Well, yes, that too.

The Names will meet later this year to discuss the entire Lloyd’s modernisation plan, which is intended to lure greater capital into the market by eliminating archaic practices.