Lloyd's of London sees an opportunity to grow its business in France and has appointed a new branch manager in Paris to lead the market's efforts, which include expanding access for French brokers. Richard Ward, chief executive of Lloyd's, attended the AMRAE annual conference late last month in Deauville, France, and spoke with Business Insurance Editor Regis Coccia about Lloyd's plans.

Q: What opportunities does Lloyd's see in France?

The French market is a very important market for us. It's only 20 miles from the U.K. The business we write here, about e500 million ($693.2 million), in the context of the Lloyd's marketplace, is a small business. It's also about 1% of the French insurance market itself. We're missing an opportunity. The French can benefit from Lloyd's skills and expertise, and we're missing an opportunity to grow in a market that's so close to London. We're at AMRAE to raise our profile, and we appointed a new person, Guy-Antoine de la Rochefoucauld, to spearhead this push for new business.

Q: What kind of risks is Lloyd's keen to write in France?

People here, as elsewhere, are worried about energy security, food security, supply chains and reputation. Lloyd's is a global marketplace and we're very comfortable covering global business exposures for companies with multinational operations. For example, we're participating at AMRAE on a kidnap and ransom panel. We are experts in providing cover for that, and for piracy risks. But we also covered the first commercial aviation flight and the first commercial space flight, so we have great expertise in many areas. We'll be able to tailor solutions that French risk managers can't get from their current providers.

Q: Is the fact that Lloyd's can syndicate coverage an advantage?

The subscription markets are far more important today than only a few years ago. The opportunity of Lloyd's is to spread risks across many layers, but the risk manager knows that Lloyd's is able to back it up with the protection of the Central Fund, if needed. The ability to spread risk is not peculiar to the French market, but Lloyd's can help large French businesses to spread their portfolios.

Q: What is Lloyd's goal in France for this year?

Our goal is, when you have brokers talking to clients, they should be saying, “And you can consider placing this risk with Lloyd's.” It's a challenging market at this point in time. We want to be at the forefront of people's minds when they're thinking about placing their cover. Lloyd's should be seen to be no different, from a broker's perspective, from a company market. It should look just as easy to place business into Lloyd's as it does your local market. We've put in place initiatives to make it easier for brokers to access Lloyd's, and getting more French brokers into Lloyd's is very important to us.