Throwback Thursday: AIG warning; Lloyd’s job cuts
Insurance Post’s Throwback Thursday steps back in time to June 1991 to remind you what was going on this week in insurance history when AIG’s president was warning about the future of the sector and Lloyd’s was shedding jobs.
13 June 1991: AIG’s President warns industry will expire
Maurice Greenberg, then president of AIG, warned insurance could be a “dying industry” unless it took drastic action to return to making underwriting profits.
Post’s David Worsfold reported that he said: “The industry has given up making an underwriting profit and adopted a market share philosophy instead.”
Greenberg said this meant insurance had been sold cheaply with loose policy wordings, and consequently, had become a safety net for failures of the market economy.
Lloyd’s cost cutting drive
Annual savings in staff costs of around £3m were being sought by the Corporation of Lloyd’s.
At 2147 the average number of employees in 1990 was only four less than in 1986 having increased to 2278 despite what Post called a “substantial investment in new technology.”
Lloyd’s chief executive Alan Lord wouldn’t comment on the precise level of staff cutbacks but the cost target suggested at least 100 roles could have been for the chop.
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