The market at Lloyd’s is a place where groups of individuals and corporations can transact insurance. After hundreds of years it has developed a strict method of placing insurance.
The Corporation of Lloyd’s never sells insurance itself and is not at risk on the insurance sold on the floor at Lloyd’s. Rather, the underwriter members subscribe to cover all or part of a proposed placement of insurance, at their own election. Numbers of individual underwriters, many in England but others scattered throughout the world, have joined together to form syndicates. Syndicates may have anywhere from two or three to hundreds of members. The individual members are known as the “names” on that syndicate. These syndicates are the entities which subscribe on behalf of their members to cover risks and percentage parts of risks. The actual potential liability of a given name depends upon his percentage share of the syndicate of which he is a member, as well as the percentage of the risk to which his syndicate has subscribed.
Lloyd’s includes a number of different types of members who are involved in the business of insurance at Lloyd’s. Individual members or “Names” — high-net-worth individuals whose exposure to the insurance risks they underwrite is unlimited – and corporate members formed exclusively to underwrite insurance business at Lloyd’s. Currently, underwriting is also conducted by partnerships and syndicates that include individual and corporate names.
When insureds receive Lloyd’s policies of insurance, what they actually obtain are commitments from each individual, corporate, limited liability, or partnership insurer (the underwriters) to pay claims up to their entire assets. The Names are jointly and severally obligated to the insured for the percentage of the risk each has agreed to assume.