Steve Knight, BMS Direct & Facultative Director walked into Lloyd’s on 17th January, met with Catlin Syndicate’s Michael Davern at their box and within minutes had refined and placed a contract using the RI3K platform on his iPad – face to face broking in the simplest and most efficient form possible.

Leading independent broker BMS has been working with Lloyd’s on its iPad initiative, alongside the Qatarlyst owned RI3K, to integrate the implementation of the new technology within the London market. BMS are using RI3K, the iPad and the Exchange to establish the ideal electronic trading platform for the London market.

Steve Knight said: “The introduction of the iPad allows us to maintain the hugely important tradition of face to face contact in the London market. There was a concern that this would be lost with increased use of electronic placing. Now we have the initiative and tools which mean we can retain the contact whilst making the whole process exponentially more efficient.

No longer will brokers have to shoulder heavy briefcases of files over to Lloyd’s, they can be nimble and flexible with only 1.6 pounds of iPad, which is all they really need in the market. Business can happen anywhere; using this system, a contract can be created on the train on the way to work or over a coffee. It has changed the way we work dramatically.”

Lloyd’s Director of Market Operations, Sue Langley said: “It is great to see so many steps coming together with the risk placed on an iPad in the Room, sent directly over the Exchange into a Managing Agent’s system and back into a Broker’s system. Face to face and technology – the perfect partnership.”

RI3K’s Market Place Director, Robin Merttens said: “BMS are the first to have grasped the power of RI3K and an iPad. Their brokers don’t feel threatened by the technology but empowered by it. They now carry around an e-slipcase loaded with all their placing information and by email and integration are connected to the people and systems they need to access. So now they can spend more time on face to face negotiations and value added services while the technology does the rest.

It also makes the acquisition of RI3K by Qatarlyst look well timed. With the long term financial support they give us we can now spend time with Lloyd’s and the other reformists leveraging this approach to increase the volume of endorsements and then placement messages destined for the Exchange.”

Catlin underwriter Michael Davern said: “At Catlin we strive to make life easier for brokers. Placing risks via an iPad promises to add both speed and flexibility to the traditional broker-underwriter relationship. Technological advancements like this optimise the way in which the market works.”

BMS, alongside Lloyd’s and RI3K, are trading using a sustainable, developed business model with widespread use of the technology which has been fully integrated into business and systems processes. In the past electronic trading has relied on paper copies of contract information to support the process. This new step is entirely electronic.

BMS has a tradition of being involved with market technological innovation and has plans to roll out the platform across the entire BMS Group in time.

This is a transformational deal for Qatarlyst, expanding its international reach and enhancing its service offering to London and beyond, creating additional opportunities for growth and providing a quantum leap in the number of members served to over 330, whilst more than doubling its headcount to over 45.

RI3K provides a global ‘Platform as a Service’ (PaaS) which replaces the paper-based processes that support the transactions of all types and classes of large commercial insurance and facultative and treaty reinsurance.

The service has been developed to support the way that buyers, brokers and carriers around the world conduct business. It allows them to collaborate, create contracts, distribute risk and transact in a way that is faster, more accurate and efficient than the paper and email based processes that currently support commercial insurance negotiations.

RI3K facilitates transactions for over 4,200 individual users drawn from over 300 of the world’s largest and most successful blue chip insurance companies and intermediaries operating in the London and other global insurance markets.

The strategic rationale

The acquisition significantly increases the scale and scope of the existing Qatarlyst business. The two
businesses are expected to be fully integrated over time to create a single platform with enhanced functionality and accessibility.

Qatarlyst, owned by the Qatar Financial Centre Authority (QFC Authority) and which provides a web based solution for regional brokers and insurance firms to negotiate, place and accept large commercial insurance risks electronically, is expected to benefit from RI3K’s interface with London and the international markets. In turn, existing RI3K customers will benefit from long term financial security and Qatarlyst’s superior functionality in areas such as Retakaful, Claims and Accounting.

The combination of Qatarlyst and RI3K will help to accelerate the development of the Qatar Financial Centre in its declared ambition to become a leading hub for reinsurance in the GCC region and beyond. This acquisition also gives Qatar the opportunity to help meet London’s insurance market needs for enhanced paperless trading.

Headquartered in Qatar with a significant presence and investment in London, the enlarged business will connect global, regional and local markets, enabling brokers, insurers and reinsurers to drive down their transactional unit cost, save valuable time and will provide increased data accuracy, management information and control.

Abdulrahman Al Shaibi, Chairman of Qatarlyst and Managing Director of the QFC Authority, commented:

“The acquisition of RI3K is a clear sign of our long term commitment to develop the Qatarlyst offering. We firmly believe that the future success of our business is dependent on our ability to offer far into the future a financially and technically secure e-platform solution on which our clients can transact quickly and efficiently.

In addition, our continual investment in and development of our platform supports the wider strategy of the QFC Authority to develop a regional hub for reinsurance and captive insurance and one that is efficiently connected to other key global centres. London is the world’s oldest insurance market and it is important that we secure and maintain strong links with it and other global markets.”

Robin Merttens, Chief Operating Officer of RI3K and who will become Marketplace Director heading up the London office of the enlarged group, commented:

“The long-term nature of Qatar’s commitment to the building of an industry utility should provide all the comfort and reassurance our customers and prospects require. Going forward, the strategy for the enlarged Qatarlyst service is consistent with the change programme in London and will contribute significantly to it.”

James Sutherland, CEO of Qatarlyst, commented:

“This acquisition is a good strategic fit both technologically and geographically for Qatarlyst giving us access to the key London and international markets. Our ambition is to become the single e-platform that supports existing distribution channels and markets with the next generation support tool for placement, claims and accounting workflows between counterparties. We support the London Market Reform agenda and our aim is to win over all the major brokers and risk assumers in the London Market to using the single Qatarlyst platform to facilitate their business.”

For the Pilot, brokers are using RI3K Riskless Endorsements to create online endorsements and negotiate with the selected underwriters. The resulting messages are then sent from RI3K, through the Exchange, directly to underwriters’ own systems. All message-based responses from underwriters are routed back via the Exchange and immediately updated on RI3K for brokers to view. Brokers do not need to invest in a gateway or dedicate time managing peer-to-peer connections with each of their markets since RI3K takes care of that.

The rest of 270 RI3K carrier members are able to respond to brokers via the RI3K browser. For brokers this means a real-time and aggregated view of all responses on one page regardless of whether underwriters have responded by messaging or via the browser.

The LMG has currently limited the scope of the Pilot to marine endorsements and this first step is expected to trigger a wider adoption of electronic processing to support the placement and administration of insurance and reinsurance business in the London Market. RI3K is already equipped to cater for all types and all classes of business via messaging should market participants wish to expand their own scope ahead of the roll out plan. And for those processes not yet catered for by messaging, the RI3K browser becomes a reliable back up tool as well as a valuable Disaster Recovery solution for users’ messaging systems.

Roy Laker, VP for ACORD London says: “The RI3K Marketplace is closely aligned to the ACORD standards and processes and is the source of a significant number of data messages in the London Market. It therefore comes as no surprise to us that RI3K are the first to secure RLC 2009-1 certification.”

Already connected to the Lloyd’s Exchange, RI3K has something to offer to everyone in the market regardless of where they are in their electronic trading cycle. Whether accessing RI3K via a browser, a direct integration to RI3K, or through the Lloyd’s Exchange, it is a central place for brokers to distribute business to all their markets regardless of their preference.

RI3K community currently consists of 268 carriers and 3,000 underwriters, and 21 broker and 9 cedant companies.