Lloyd’s says it will focus on its “accessibility and visibility” in Australia as competition in the local commercial insurance market intensifies.

Among a range of modernisation projects being introduced by Lloyd’s is a proposal to allow “straight-through” processing from Australian underwriting agencies to managing general agents in London.

It also intends to streamline Australian market business going through its Singapore underwriting hub, Chairman John Nelson told insuranceNEWS.com.au during a visit to Australia last week.

“We’re hoping in the next couple of months that the Singapore regulator will agree to allow us to give delegated authority direct from Singapore to Australia, for example,” he said. “We expect that will increase the business flowing through Singapore.”

At present, Lloyd’s has eight service companies and 113 underwriting agencies in Australia and the Lloyd’s Asia platform in Singapore has 18 syndicates working under authority from managing agents in London.

It has already implemented a solution to provide back-office processing functions in the Singapore operation, centralising work such as risk registration, quality assurance of slips and data, premium processing and settlement. Such functions have been previously performed by each company separately.

Mr Nelson says Lloyd’s share of the Australian reinsurance market has risen recently, but is “patchy”.

“Our share of reinsurance has gone down as a result of the reinsurance industry’s present conditions, but I imagine at some point that will recover. We would obviously like to increase our reinsurance position.”

He says Lloyd’s greatest success in Australia has come from the SME space, “where we’ve doubled our underwriting agency business. It’s been slowly coming good in the past four years.

“Australia is quite a sophisticated market, and it’s creating new sophisticated risks. That’s where we want to be.

“I suspect that you will find in time there will be more physical presence here from Lloyd’s.

Lloyd’s new General Representative in Australia, Chris Mackinnon, says while Lloyd’s is a very strong brand in the local market, “we’re going to protect and preserve our position and try to continue growing our market share”.