INMAG_AUG2010_tues:page layouts
28/7/10
1:16 PM
Page 30
Back on the road again Lloyd’s recalls Keith Stern to the UK to do something he’s become an expert at – building relationships
KEITH STERN LEARNED PLENTY working in Australia for 10 years, and he’s looking forward to applying some of the lessons in his next job. Mr Stern, Lloyd’s Sydney-based Regional Manager for Asia-Pacific, took up a new position as Regional Manager for the UK and Ireland on July 1. While his fondness for Australia and Australians is now firmly entrenched – he took up citizenship in his fourth year in the job – Mr Stern admits that if he’d stayed only a couple of years as originally envisaged, he probably would have left the country with fewer regrets. “One of the first things I had to do in 2000 was deal with a number of run-offs which involved some rather interesting characters and some messy situations,” he says. “It was symptomatic of the era. There were some systemic issues which permeated across the industry at all levels. Then we had the HIH crash in 2001 and in 2002 the Australian Pr udential Regulation A u t h o r i t y enhanced capital solvency to strengthen the capital base of the industry.”
And he had to deal with the Federal Government’s demand in 2000 that Lloyd’s place reserves in Australia – a move that saw the market invest about $350 million in local assets. Today Lloyd’s Australian reserves are worth more than $1.6 billion. The Australian market is also the fourthlargest source of revenue for Lloyd’s, with premiums in 2008 of around $1 billion. Mr Stern was already experienced in regulatory affairs when he arrived in Sydney, and the coming of the Financial Services Reform Act in 2001 honed those skills. But he doesn’t expect his experience is going to be in demand in the London office this time around. “For the first time in nearly 21 years at Lloyd’s I can almost safely say that I won’t have too much to do with compliance work,” he told Insurance News. “We already have a very experienced compliance team in London, so they don’t need me.” Instead, he’ll be developing relationships for Lloyd’s in its home market, ending some anomalies as old as the 322 year-old market. “It’s a curious thing that we’ve never had a representative or a general manager appointed for the UK and Ireland, our second-largest market,” he says. “We’ve never had a dedicated person looking after business development there to help grow coverholder and broker relationships.” Essentially, Lloyd’s UK business gets done in the market’s iconic Lime Street headquarters in London. While Mr Stern’s job will encompass relationships with topend UK brokers and their equally top-end risks, he’s also going to develop links with “the next tier down”. “I think I can use a lot of the experience that I’ve learned here to design what I think the new job should be about and how it should be done,” he says. “Traditionally we’ve sat back and expected the business to come to us. And while we get business from all over the country through the broker relationships, we don’t get to see the SME books – they have usually gone to our competitors.” He says the best way to build business with local brokers is by visiting them, which insuranceNEWS
August/September 2010