In the
broad corridors of the Red Building of
Hindu High School, the walk of the attender would attract the attention of
students inside the class room – before it even sounds, some would ready to fly
away…. It was the sweet sound of school
bell – #not physically a bell# – but
that of a metal hammered with a wooden object, creating enough sound audible to
the locality. Such bells are missing now in schools
perhaps !
A bell is a directly
struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow
cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides
forming an efficient resonator. Bells
can be found everywhere. As the tallest structures on the city skyline allowed
an unobstructed delivery of sound that performed functions beyond the call to
worship, bells were seen atop.
Such is the power of a
bell that all those within hearing distance would live and work to its metre
and, in kind, have their identity defined by it. At Lords and later at Eden Gardens, bell would
ceremonially be stuck before the start of a Test match.
Lloyd's of London,
generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market
located in London, United Kingdom. Unlike most of its competitors in the
industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body
governed by the Lloyd's Act 1871 and subsequent Acts of Parliament. It operates
as a partially-mutualised marketplace within which multiple financial backers,
grouped in syndicates, come together to pool and spread risk. These underwriters, or "members", are a collection
of both corporations and private individuals, the latter being traditionally
known as "Names". The
business underwritten at Lloyd's is predominantly general insurance and
reinsurance, although a small number of syndicates write term life assurance.
The market has its roots in marine insurance and was founded by Edward Lloyd at
his coffee house on Tower Street in c. 1686. Today, it has a dedicated building
on Lime Street within which business is transacted at each syndicate's
"box" in the underwriting "Room", with the insurance policy
documentation being known traditionally as a "slip".
The market's motto is Fidentia,
Latin for "confidence", and it is closely associated with the Latin
phrase uberrima fides, or "utmost good faith", representing the
relationship between underwriters and brokers. Having survived multiple
scandals and significant challenges through the second half of the 20th
century, most notably the asbestosis affair, Lloyd's today promotes its strong
financial "chain of security" available to promptly pay all valid
claims. At the end of 2019 this chain consisted of £52.8 billion of
syndicate-level assets, £27.6bn of members' "funds at Lloyd's" and
over £4.4bn in a third mutual link which includes the Central Fund. In 2019
there were 80 syndicates managed by 54 managing agencies that collectively
wrote £35.9bn of gross premiums on risks placed by 335 brokers.
Peeping back history, Lutine
was a frigate which served in both the French Navy and the Royal Navy. She was
launched by the French in 1779. The ship passed to British control in 1793 and
was taken into service as HMS Lutine. She sank among the West Frisian Islands
during a storm in 1799. She was built as
a French Magicienne-class frigate with 32 guns, and was launched at Toulon in
1779. During the French Revolution, Lutine came under French Royalist control.
On 18 December 1793, she was one of sixteen ships handed over to a British
fleet at the end of the Siege of Toulon, to prevent her being captured by the
French Republicans.
In October
1799 she was employed in carrying about £1.2 million in bullion and coin
(equivalent in value to £119 million in 2020), from Yarmouth to Cuxhaven in
order to provide Hamburg's banks with funds in order to prevent a stock market
crash and, possibly, for paying troops in North Holland. In the evening of 9
October 1799, during a heavy northwesterly gale, the ship under Captain
Lancelot Skynner, having made unexpected leeway, was drawn by the tidal stream
flowing into the Waddenzee, onto a sandbank in Vlie off the island of
Terschelling, in the West Frisian Islands. There, she became a total loss. All
but one of her approximately 240 passengers and crew perished in the breaking
seas.
The gold was
insured by Lloyd's of London, which paid the claim in full. The underwriters
therefore owned the gold under rights of abandonment and later authorised
attempts to salvage it. However, because of the state of war, the Dutch also
laid claim to it as a prize of war. F.P. Robbé, the Receiver on Terschelling, was
authorised in 1799 to begin salvage operations. In 1821, Robbé's successor as Receiver at
Terschelling, Pierre Eschauzier successfully petitioned King William I and by
royal decree received the sole right to attempt the further salvage of the
cargo of the English frigate, the Lutine. In return, the state would receive
half of all recoveries. Eschauzier and his heirs therefore became the owners of
the wreck by royal decree and thus are known as the 'Decretal Salvors'.
With passage of years, Lloyd's
records were destroyed by fire in 1838, and the actual amount of the gold lost
is now unknown. Many attempts were made to recover the cargo with limited
success, but in 1858 the bell of the ship was recovered from an entanglement of
chains and eventually came to be hung in Lloyd's underwriting room in the Royal
Exchange. When Lloyd's moved to Leadenhall Street, and then to Lime Street
where it is today, the bell moved with it. The bell
had a very important purpose at Lloyd's. When overdue ships came in safely, the
bell was rung twice to sighs of relief from the underwriters. If a ship was
lost, the bell would ring once. This way, everyone knew the fate of the ship
and the cargo they had insured at the same time. When a ship went down,
an entry was also made in a log book, of which there are now many preserved in
storage at Lloyd's, though one historic copy is always on display beneath the
bell.
That prized
possession is ‘Lutine Bell’ — it's
almost luminescent, its gilded coat shining brightly against the contrasting
beautifully carved dark wood structure around it. It was rung when Twin towers collapsed and
again recently when Lloyd’s marked the closure of its London underwriting room
by ringing the Lutine Bell. The market announced
earlier this week that it would shut its underwriting room at 4pm on 19 March
in response to the coronavirus crisis. Closed in
a post on LinkedIn, Lloyd’s wrote: “Our market remains open !
Now comes the news that Insurance
and reinsurance marketplace Lloyd’s of London’s announcement that it plans to
reopen its London headquarters and underwriting room on September 1, with new
safety measures in place. The Lloyd’s
underwriting floor at 1 Lime Street has been closed since March 19 due to the
ongoing COVID-19 crisis in the UK. But with lockdown restrictions set to be
significantly eased next month and many non-essential businesses reopening,
Lloyd’s is now looking to resume operations at its headquarters. However, it
noted that the September 1 date remains subject to government approval and the
continued easing of lockdown measures.
If given the green light,
the plans would see Lloyd’s reduce the capacity of the underwriting room to 45%
in order to adhere to social distancing guidelines, and install clear screens
on underwriting boxes. Opening hours are also being reviewed, and other
measures under consideration include new deep cleaning practices, one-way and
queuing systems, and temperature-check thermal cameras. In addition, Lloyd’s is
working with the market to determine a class of business rota system to help
manage capacity in the underwriting room. And in parallel with these changes,
plans to improve digital connectivity have been accelerated with a virtual room
to enable brokers and underwriters to connect online in a similar way to the
physical location. A number of digital platforms are currently being tested
with an eye to launching the virtual room on September 1.
To support this, a help
desk will be set up at Lloyd’s to assist market participants in training and
troubleshooting, and digital booths will be installed to allow for confidential
virtual meetings.
The World is changing,
Lloyds has weathered many a storms and perhaps would place good plans for
itself before undertaking to cover business casualties of which Covid 19 cover
might feature more prominently.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
21.7.2020
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