Lloyd’s Lab heads to the Americas – what you need to know

Lloyd’s Lab is seeking people and businesses with big ideas on how to solve insurance problems and help propel the industry into the future.

Marking the first time the program has extended its reach with a dedicated Americas theme since launch in 2018, the 12th Lloyd’s Lab Cohort will help develop businesses that are innovating solutions, products and technologies to build environmental resiliency and create more sustainable approaches to doing business.

The Lloyd’s Lab initiative consists of a 10 week fast-track, fast fail programme where new concepts, ideas and products can be tested with the support of experts from the world’s largest insurance and reinsurance market.

“The idea was to really canvass the marketplace to help us explore customer centric solutions that help build resiliency in the face of increasing challenges, systemic risks and others, and to really see about how people are thinking about supporting societies in their transition to a more sustainable future,” Lloyd’s Canada president Marc Lipman (pictured below) told Insurance Business.

“We’re really thinking about how we can future proof a business that’s 90% digital and 10% brick and mortar, or its products are 90% intangible and 10% tangible, when 20 years ago those statistics would have been the exact opposite.”

In an interview with Insurance Business, Lipman spoke about how the Lloyd’s Lab is looking to Cohort 12 to shake up traditional insurance by championing fresh ideas and backing innovative solutions.

How Lloyd’s Lab is finding better ways to do business

Taking its Lloyd’s Lab cohort program to the Americas for the first time presented an opportunity for Lloyd’s to highlight the thought leadership and emerging technologies, products and services that that can drive a robust insurance market forward, according to Lipman.

“We get excited each time a new cohort is about to start because of the potential for the new ways of thinking that they’re going to bring and how they’re able to help us reduce our reliance on the norm on established ways of doing things,” Lipman said. “Lloyd’s has been around for 330 years now, and we’re proud of our history of innovation, but there’s lots for us to learn.”

A slew of risks and challenges have emerged over the past five years, from growing threats to the environment, to cyber criminal activity, to intangible protection gaps.

Emerging risks have driven a general feeling of uncertainty and existential questions around insurance’s future role for many industry stakeholders.

To get ahead, insurance should tap into external solutions and innovators rather than becoming complacent and isolated, according to Lipman.

“While [at Lloyd’s] we’re good at an insurance, we’re also humble enough to know that we’re not great at every new technology and every new idea,” Lipman said. “If we can welcome new people and new ideas into our market then we will be much stronger for it collectively.”

Lloyd’s Lab in the Americas – how will Lloyd’s work with participants?

Businesses that are successful in entering the cohort will receive access to expert mentors and proximity to key advisors, potential trading partners & investors.

The three themes of the latest Lloyd’s Lab cohort are:

1. New Products
2. Data, Models & Processes
3. Building resilience in an ever-changing Americas landscape

Participants in the US, Canada, Latin America, and Caribbean focused ‘Building Resilience in an Ever-Changing Americas Landscape’ theme will have access to regional specialists.

Selected businesses will be able to work out of Lloyd’s in London or wherever best fits their business, and office space will be available at key locations around the Americas.

Support for businesses interested in gaining mentorship and guidance into helping provide novel solutions to real world problems does not end once the cohort concludes.

“It remains really important for the Lab to provide a safe place for new ideas and for nonstandard risks to be explored, as well as support at the critical final stages of bringing a solution to the market,” Lipman said.

Afterwards, the participating companies are offered a product launch pad, which has been able to help foster products like flash flood coverage and parametric cargo solutions, with FloodFlash and Parsyl among graduates of the program.

Terrific interview with @ParsylHQ‘s Ben Hubbard.

Parsyl, @Lloyds_Lab alumni, are behind Syndicate 1796, a Lloyd’s approved specialised syndicate to insure transportation of COVID-19 vaccine to emerging economies.

Learn more: https://t.co/HCFLZo8BNR#LloydsLab #LloydsPeople https://t.co/SfmpQeASWv

— Lloyd’s (@LloydsofLondon) November 18, 2020

“They’ve been able to launch their products with the support of different Lloyd’s syndicates through the launch pad and find the capacity to keep on expanding their product and offer more coverage,” Lipman said. “There’s such a diversity of expertise and thought out there, that whether a business is accepted into the Lab or not, it is really a productive and useful exercise in its own right to see what kinds of ideas are out there.”