"A.1. AT LLOYDS"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 20, 16 October 1937, Page 8

"A.1. AT LLOYDS"

History of Famous Insurance Corporation ROTARY ADDRESS The history of Lloyds, the _ weridwide insurance corporation whlcli had its origin in the seventeenth century coffee house of Edward Lloyd in lyndon and which, among other tliings gave us the expression "A1 at Lloyds" was described to members of the Hastings Rotary Club at their luncheon yesterday afternoon by Rotarian Ron Miles, of Hastings, in an interesting talk. The history of Lloyds, he said, dated back to the seventeenth century, when business was transacted in counting houses in the private residences of business men. Tiiere was then no concentration of the xnercantile business as we know it' to-day. A person desiring to elfect an insurance in those 'days would write down particulars of tho risk he wished covered on a sheet of parchment and go round the counting houses of the business men interested in the . particular line.. He would endeavour to get some .of these men to each take part of his risk for hira, and those prepared to do so would sigri their nam'es one beneath the other, from which practice they came to be known as underwriters. •The tirst communal places which the merchants had for doing business were the opn ■ shops, but Jater the cofiee houses took their place, and gradually tJiese became specialised according to the particular type of business'' men who would gather there. System of Individuai Liability. Of these houses the most enterprising was that° owned by Edward Lloyd and patronised by masters of ships and merchants interested in shipping. Lloyd- devised tho idea of aupplying to his patrons the latest shipping news by the waiters npon a blackboard, and later he started publishing a news sheet, which survives to-day as Lloyds Haily List. On the death of Edward Lloyd tlie merchants themselves formed the present corporation. JNf.umerous relics oi the old coft'ee house still survived, and until 1918 the official address of the business still remained at Lloyd's Coffee House. There remained to the present day the waiters, who were attendants dressed in scarlet cloaks und cocked hats, and the underwriters still sat in pews or boxes. I3ub by far the most important relic. said Mr IVliles, was the system of individuai liability, which distinguished Lloyds from ahnost every otKer insurance firm in the world. With Lloyds the risk was plaeed with an individuai underwriter, or with a group of them, but not with the corporation. The underwriter then bore the direct responsibility. Full security, however, was assured by a number of provisions, among them the exacting audit which was made of all the underwriter's accounts, the deposit he had to put up when he joined the corporation, and the unlimited liability, which was backed hjr the whole of his personal estate and by agreements with other underwriters. The individuai public. he said, could approach the underwriters " only through a - Lloyds broker, who woulil himself go round the underwriters and get different ones each to take a -share of the risk. FmalJy the policy would pass through the central policy-signimr aSce which would subject it to scrntinv and then affix its seai. Patent Medicine Insured. The underwriting rooms af Lloyds covered- an- aere of ground and had * in the middle of the floor a caller's rostrum from which hung a he!! with a I romantic. history. This beli was • used i for calling attention when making. an- j nounceinents, although this alone was now 'insufficient and loud speakers had largely taken its place in actual use„ There were 112 underwriters. WBile it was not wholJy correet to say • that Lloyds- would insure everytliing, Mr Miles sairl that Lloyds pohcies . covered all • kinds of risks ahd he instanced many of the more unusual Ihere was the golfer who insured against incurring a penalty by holing xn oue, the man who took out a policy against his mother-in-law surviving au illness, and fr.eque.nt cases of prospective fathers insuring against twins, triplets, and even quintuplets. i One particularly unusual policy h»d been taken out by a business man who had to travel on a ship with the Los Angeles evangelist, Miss Annie MacPherson, his insurance being against his becoming converted by her to sucli an extent as to affect his business, fn the production of the filin "Cavalcade" an insurance had been taken ' out against production delay through rain, and this had prompted' the filming of "Lloyds of London." which, incidentally had been similarly insured. Something new in insurance policies had been undertaken by Lloyds last month, when for the first time they had guaranteed the efficacy of a particular brand of patent medicine and undertaken to pay medical expenses if it did not effect a cure as claimed for it. In concjusion, Mr Miles quotcd the speech of the Jate King G eorgo V. when ho laid the 'fodndation ' stone of Lloyds'. new building in London in 1928, in which reference was made to tlie world-wide influence for' good whicli characterised the finn. On, many occasions, said Mr Miles. the underwriters at Lloyds had not hesitated to put service to the cpmmunlty before self.