Most combined ratios still sit above 100%, and the Dali reinsurance renewal is adding upward pressure on pricing. Three consecutive years of strong investment income have allowed clubs to limit general increases while reserves accumulated. Gallagher expects general increases of 2.5% to 5% for 2027-28, with reinsurance rates rising further in the freight, charterers and cargo segment.
The move marks the London market arrival of a platform assembled by Brian Duperreault, executive chairman of Cedar Trace. Duperreault previously served as chief executive of AIG, Marsh & McLennan, and ACE, now Chubb. Cedar Trace is closely affiliated with Mereo Insurance, the Bermuda-based reinsurer rated A- by AM Best. David Croom-Johnson, who leads Mereo, will serve as executive chairman of the new syndicate. Richard Holden, chief underwriting officer at Cedar Trace, will lead it on an underwriting basis.
The China Insurance Security Fund, the industry-funded backstop that steps in when insurers are liquidated, gets an expanded remit too, covering not just bankruptcies but broader “major risk” situations requiring a market exit, with a clearer capped-payout structure for policyholders. It’s a similar idea, in spirit, to the policyholder protection schemes and guaranty funds operating in the UK, EU member states and US states — though the mechanics, funding sources and payout caps all differ by jurisdiction.
Under that plan, Mercer becomes Marsh. Oliver Wyman becomes “Oliver Wyman, a Marsh business,” which is the corporate equivalent of keeping your surname but adding “of the Marsh family” after it at every dinner party. And Guy Carpenter, the reinsurance broking arm, the bit that spends its days working out how insurers themselves get insured, which if you think about it too long starts to resemble one of those Russian dolls where eventually there’s just a tiny wooden man shrugging, becomes Marsh Re.
Premiums written through MGAs more than doubled between 2020 and 2024, according to Moody’s. Coverholders now account for around 40% of Lloyd’s gross written premium, which grew from approximately £36 billion in 2020 to £58 billion in 2025. Seven of the ten largest London brokers now operate active facility or follow-platform arrangements, with named examples, including Aon Client Treaty, Marsh Fast Track, and WTW Gemini. These are not niche developments. They mark a broad structural shift in how commercial risks are sourced, priced, and placed.
Lloyd’s has delivered a solid first half: gross written premium up 6.9% to £34.7 billion, an underwriting profit of £1.9 billion, and a combined ratio of 90.8% – better than the 92.5% recorded in the same period of 2025. Profit before tax of £3.5 billion was lower than the £4.2 billion a year earlier, hit by unrealised fixed income losses as yields widened on geopolitical and inflationary pressures. Importantly, those are unrealised losses – they do not affect Lloyd’s claims-paying capacity or solvency position, which remains strong.
Iran launched missile and drone attacks against US military targets in Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, and Bahrain on Wednesday after American forces resumed strikes against Iranian territory, the BBC reported. The exchange returns the Strait of Hormuz to active conflict conditions, less than three months after a ceasefire framework appeared to offer a path to normalisation. The strait is the world’s single most critical energy shipping corridor.
The new rule, COCON 1.1.7FR, brings non-financial misconduct explicitly within scope of the FCA’s Conduct Rules for the first time in non-banking firms, aligning them with a standard that has applied to banks for several years. The FCA has deliberately avoided a closed list of what counts as misconduct, describing it broadly as behaviour “not of a clearly financial nature,” with bullying, harassment, sexual misconduct and violence named explicitly, provided the conduct is sufficiently serious and has a genuine work-related link. The threshold for seriousness is aligned with the definition of harassment under the Equality Act 2010. From today, firms must also disclose verified misconduct incidents through regulatory references when staff move between employers.
The AA‘s three private equity owners, TowerBrook Capital Partners, Warburg Pincus, and Stonepeak, have been pursuing a dual-track process for most of 2026. They have been weighing a sale against a London Stock Exchange flotation that Sky News said remains viable as late as 2027. Both Allianz and the AA declined to comment.
What profiling adds that raw telematics can’t is a pattern across a workforce, not just a single driver. Consistent fatigue findings, for instance, can point to scheduling, workload distribution or time-on-task limits rather than a string of unconnected bad decisions, and Gallagher Bassett has flagged that economic pressure – longer hours, second jobs, reduced recovery time – can make that pattern more likely to appear.
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