Word: lloyds
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Reeling from financial pressure and haunted by the specter of suicides, thousands of Names agreed to a 1996 settlement Lloyd's concocted in response to legal actions and growing public outrage. Called Reconstruction and Renewal, the settlement created a reinsurance company known as Equitas that assumed responsibility for all of Lloyd's pre-1993 obligations. At the same time, Lloyd's reduced and capped the pre-1993 debts of Names who agreed to pay up and waive all claims against the company. But this global deal has raised more questions than it has answered. A committee of the House...
...growing legal storm lashed Citibank in New York, where some $12 billion of Lloyd's North American reserves were on deposit. Paul Cohen, a supervising examiner for the New York State insurance department, declared in 1995 that the reserves were "seriously deficient" and "unlikely to cover all losses" at Lloyd's. Cohen accused Citibank of permitting Lloyd's to shift assets from the accounts of Names who owed nothing to pay the obligations of those Names who did--in violation of the Names' contracts with Lloyd's and trust agreements with Citibank. Citibank declined comment, citing pending litigation...
...Britain, Lloyd's has been protected by its own act of Parliament and by an abiding fear of the insurer's still formidable clout. "Lloyd's has more power than the government," says a knighted landowner and victim of a bad Lloyd's investment. "We are scared. People are frightened. This is not the England I knew...
...Even as Lloyd's deflected the lawsuits, it hounded its Names to pay the price. Some did. Roy Bromley, a ruined Name, balanced a shotgun on the ledge of open French windows at his London home and shot himself in the chest. Richard Burgoyne shot himself at his home in 1993--his wife and two sons, ages 8 and 11, found his body in their living room. Estimates of Lloyd's-related suicides range from a dozen to more than 30. The gentlemen at Lloyd's acknowledge only seven...
...Lloyd's too is struggling mightily. It is a shadow of its former self, with estimated losses of nearly $200 million for 1998 and 1999 combined. Corporations now account for 80% of Lloyd's capital, leaving the Names to play only a minor role. But even with this corporate cash, Lloyd's capacity to write insurance is lower today than it was in 1990. Meanwhile, Lloyd's share of the worldwide insurance market has fallen from 10% at the beginning of the 20th century to less than 2% today. Even the insurer's name has been diminished. No longer...