Lloyd's of London updates key system software

The specialist insurance market has updated software which forms part of its settlement and trust-fund operations.

One of the key roles of the system is to settle insurance transactions between syndicates and brokers, with more than £31bn - in eight different currencies - processed through the system.

The settlement mainframe system receives input including information on premiums, claims, reinsurance, charges, direct feeds, currencies and letter of credit scheme transactions.

It ensures payments owed by brokers and underwriters are received, and all payments owed to brokers and underwriters are paid out on time, with statements issued to inform the various parties of what is going on.

Ian Wootten, manager of Lloyd's settlement and trust fund operation, explained: "This system is at the end of the business process and, once items have been agreed, affects the timely and efficient transfer of all insurance related monies for the Lloyd's insurance market."

Lloyd's had previously been using software from Information Builders called PC Focus but as this package began to age it started looking for an alternative, and decided last year to upgrade to the same software company's WebFocus product.

Wootten said: "WebFocus is good at generating reports in different formats - the extracts to the banking systems are exactly that."

WebFocus downloads files from the mainframe, allowing staff to create payment files and reports in a variety of currencies. It also settles payments to banks and other parties, and processes letters of credit in their preferred formats.

He added: "It gives us more flexibility - it gives us the same functionality but gives us the tools to expand. We've got more flexibility to link into other sites - we aren't constrained to one site.

"Our letters of credit scheme for the Lloyd's market is accessed by people based in London using the system here in [Chatham]."

The new software also adds security: "The front end of WebFocus does give us a lot of security with access controls," he said.