Talk:Lloyd's of London/Archives/2012

'Recruit to dilute'

What does this section mean to say? I'm sure it makes sense if you work in insurance, but it seems esoteric, rambling, meandering and adds nothing. Also, no citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.63.44.237 (talk) 05:04, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Needs InfoBox

Lloyd's

Company type	Insurance market
Industry	Insurance Reinsurance
Founded	1774 (Society of Lloyd's) 1871 (Incorporation of Lloyd's)
Headquarters	One Lime Street London , United Kingdom
Key people	Peter Levene (Chairman) Richard Ward (Chief executive officer)
Website	lloyds.com

Me thinks this page needs an infobox. Not only is it a very common thing to see on business/firm Wikipedia entries it is also very useful to be able to see all the basic stats (such as Revenue, board of executives, date of founding, number of employees, ect.) in one glance. Hence their common use I suppose. --Discott (talk) 18:23, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, an infobox would be very useful, as would the information typically contained in an infobox. The article doesn't appear to tell us how many people work for Lloyd's proper (i.e. rather than being "members" or separate companies, etc.), and it doesn't tell us who heads Lloyd's, except that there is an external link at the end to a 2008 USA today story which mentions Richard Ward as the "CEO of Lloyd's". He may or may not still have the job, of course. Time permitting, I will try to add some up-to-date information. But anyone else who can do this is more than welcome to! Robertbyrne (talk) 18:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Lloyd's is run by the Council of Lloyd's. Chairman is Lord Levene. CEO is still Richard Ward. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:49, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

How about adding this? Still no employee count, unfortunately.

Robertbyrne (talk) 13:49, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

No objections so far, so I added the infobox to the article. Robertbyrne (talk) 10:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

University of Southampton

This is a shameless piece of posturing and anyway in the wrong place. It has been moved to Lloyd's Register. Frankly, I would have thought that such experts should have realised that their press release was in the wrong place to begin with.--Major Bonkers 07:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Quick Facts

Kittybrewster has posted these; there is a small error in that these results are described by Lloyd's as 'preliminary', not 'final'; however the 'facts' are strongly POV and appear to have been copied from the Lloyd's press release. Is it really appropriate to describe a loss as 'a strong performance'? --Major Bonkers 10:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Old Harrovian, would you like to amend Capital backing?? Kittybrewster 10:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Old Etonian, I was responsible for most of the 'History' and 'Recruit to Dilute' sections. I'll get round to the 'Capital Backing' section sooner or later, I expect, but HMS Lutine comes first!--Major Bonkers 15:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Somebody thinks CBS is still vertical. Nigel Hanbury thinks that Names might still get something out of 2003; fat chance given the cost of 2005. Kittybrewster 13:22, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Chuck Quakenbush

A reference to Chuck Quackenbush being paid a bribe in the course of the formation of Equitas has been removed by 209.77.204.49 (see history - Atak). Is there any reason why this should not be re-posted? --Major Bonkers 13:52, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Not having had any response, the section has been replaced, and a linked reference added. The reference would have been found had User 209.77.204.49 consulted the 'External Links' section of the page. By and large, adding references is to be prefered to invalid deletions. --Major Bonkers 03:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

All "asbestosis" references

Should be changed to read "asbestos." Asbestosis is one of many diseases (like mesothelioma, lung cancer, pleural plaques, pleural thickening, gastrointestinal cancer, etc.) that claimants who were exposed to asbestos became afflicted with. Lloyds (and later Equitas) was forced to recompense its insured for damages they paid to claimants suffering from all asbestos-related diseases.

No. Equitas sought to avoid paying money to claimants not suffering from the disease. By demanding proof of the insurance and the injury. - Kittybrewster 10:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment

I found the article hopelessly long-winded and over-technical. Lloyd's is a celebrated London entity and deserves a readable entry. I suggest that the History section should be trimmed down drastically, with an eye for engaging the lay reader. The mind-numbing detail could be moved to a separate article for insurance fanatics & experts.

David Mainwaring's report

Why not include a hyperlink to it? - 62.136.222.237 10:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Realistic disaster scenario

Why does "realistic disaster scenario" redirect here? It should be explained in the article or redirected elsewhere. -- Beland 10:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Realistically, all disasters end up here, don't they?  :) - Kittybrewster 10:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

It used to be a stub:

The objective of Lloyd's of London's Realistic Disaster Scenario (‘RDS’) exercise is for syndicates to estimate the losses they would incur from a variety of hypothetical disaster scenarios, using consistent and appropriate methods and assumptions. 65.8.157.85 (talk) 05:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge Council of Lloyd's?

I don't know who suggested that these articles be merged, but I would suggest that Council of Lloyd's, a tiny stub, be merged into this article instead. --Error28 08:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Unlimited, limited, and corporate

After I read this part:

For most of Lloyd's history, rich individuals ("Names") backed policies written at Lloyd's with all of their personal wealth (unlimited liability). Since 1994, Lloyd's has allowed corporate members into the market, with limited liability.

...I thought, "ah, there are two kinds of members: individuals with unlimited liability, who were the only kind before 1994, and corporate members with limited liability." Then I went on to read this part:

As of 31 January 2006, Lloyd's of London had the following structure: Capital providers: 55 corporate members; 1,497 individual Names with unlimited liability; 468 individual members with limited liability

So, what? The Names and corporate members we had already learned about, but where did these individuals with limited liability come from? (Is it something to do with the practice, briefly mentioned above and not expounded upon, of Names forming limited liability partnerships to protect themselves? If so, it should be noted, and also some kind of explanation about what the difference between this and a corporate member is, since they're both corporations with limited liability.) Marnanel 18:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Shipping insurance monopoly in the 19th century?

In the war of 1812 article an editor cites Hansard (Hansard, vol 29, pp.649-50.) as naming Lloyd's as the source for a total number reported of all shipping losses in that war. Unfortunately I do not have access to the Hansard volume cited but if true it would seem to suggest that Lloyd's possessed exhaustive knowledge of all British shipping at the time. Would this likely have been the result of a near monopoly of shipping insurance in the UK at the time or is it more likely simply a result of such knowledge being freely exchanged among insurers of the time such that Lloyds could confidently report a total of all losses for the entire empire to parliament?Zebulin 18:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This is almost certainly because at the time the British merchant fleet was by far the largest in the world, and was to remain so until as late as the immediate post WW II period IIRC, and so naturally the vessel's owners would be more likely to use a British insurance company. Lloyd's had a reputation for always paying out on losses, and of refusing to ensure bad risks, meaning that because they employed their own ship inspectors, which other companies did not, they were able to assess the safety of any individual ship which meant that any that were unsafe or were thought to be 'coffin ships' - ships intended by the owners to be sunk for the insurance - were refused insurance by the company. This, in turn, led to improving standards for the maritime trade as a whole, as it tended to drive the bad ship owners out of business. So, Lloyd's gained a reputation that enabled it to become perhaps the company to use if you want to insure a ship. For more info see Lloyd's Register. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 21:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

To give you some idea of the vast size of the British Merchant Navy in previous years, Britain entered World War II in 1939 with a merchant fleet of some 12,000 British owned or registered seagoing ships. By 1945 this had reduced to 8,000 due to U-boat sinkings in the Battle of the Atlantic, minings, accidents etc. At this time it was still around twice the size of all the rest of the world's merchant fleets combined. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 12:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Restaurants or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. You can find the related request for tagging here -- TinucherianBot (talk) 10:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Duly undone. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Myanmar

The facts about Myanmar seem pretty NPOV and scattered throughout the article. I'm going to move them all into one small section if no one objects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metzby (talk • contribs) 20:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus for move.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

Lloyd's of London → Lloyd's Lloyds at the moment bizarrely is a redirect to Lloyd and should lead to Lloyd's. "Lloyd's" is the common name per MOS. I regard this as uncontroversial but have no idea how to do it. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are three possible entities referred to as "Lloyd's", and we don't use curly quotes in titles. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Neither the List nor the Register are known as "Lloyd's". All three have the apostrophe which is not forbidden by MOS. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:26, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• Alternative proposal: make a new DAB page for Lloyds. Someone looking for "Lloyd's"/"Lloyds" should not have to go through Lloyd, it is unnecessary. The insurers might not be primary, there is also the bank. Sam⁵ (talk) 17:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I think "Lloyd's" is primary. The bank is Lloyds Bank. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:26, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose The correct name is Lloyd's of London, and my own personal experience has always seen them called that (never just "Lloyd's"). TJ Spyke 18:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Plain vanilla "Lloyds" is the common abbreviation of Lloyds TSB Bank Plc, which is much more frequently referred to than Lloyds of London. Lloyds should go to a disambig page. Having said this I think there should be separate Lloyd and Lloyds disambig pages; this may suit the requester more. --WickerWiki (talk) 20:02, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - When I hear "Lloyd's", I think of Lloyd's Register, not this insurance market. There are other "Lloyd's" on the dab page as well, no evidence that this one is the primary meaning. Parsecboy (talk) 21:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Lloyd's" is ambiguous between the insurance house and the bank. "Lloyd's of London" is the insurance house's official name. Tevildo (talk) 00:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Slavery Denial

In 2007 I added a paragraph to this article highlighting Lloyds' involvment in the slave trade. Sadly this was removed - perhaps by some kind of neo-colonialist editor who for twisted PoV reasons is desperate to deny this vital part of the organisation's history. As you can see, I have today re-instated the missing section. If anybody else wishes to remove it, they really ought to grow a pair and give some pretty valid reasons why on this talk page.Ackees (talk) 16:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It was deleted Here, on November 20, 2008. -DePiep (talk) 17:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC).

Thanks DePiep. I can understand why, with regard to the Burma comments, editors might want to prevent the article from being simply a soapbox. However, The Slavery section was not and is not PoV or irrelevant. However, I have improved it with proper academic sources. Sadly the article is lacking in proper sources in general.Ackees (talk) 18:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Friend, you give the slavery angle way too much prominence by making it the second paragraph of the article about Lloyd's. It was only ever one component of Lloyd's business, never the majority, and some argue that, by ultimately refusing to insure slavers, lloyd's actually contributed to abolition (although I am not convinced). Anyway, you should edit to give this paragraph much less prominence.

A —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.177.125 (talk) 21:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, Ackees, please assume good faith. Your assumptions about another editors motives are not helpful. Let's get back to facts: Lloyds grew out of shipping insurance, and the ships were involved in all parts of legal trade. We don't have paragraphs about pepper, sugar, cotton, tea, opium, tobacco etc. here. Why not? Because you could get insurance no matter what you were carrying. How was the insurance of slave trading ships different from the insurance of a ship trading rum and machine parts? I suggest that this paragraph be replaced with something giving a better context. Perhaps something along the lines of

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were a time of great expansion of Britain's maritime trade. Of particular importance were the destinations of the American colonies, and later the United States; Far east Asia and the Indian Subcontinent; and Africa. A number of important comodities were carried including slaves, spices, and fabrics. This increase in trade meant a great expansion to Lloyds' business.

I suppose that the transportation of free colonists was also important business. Thehalfone (talk) 15:39, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I've re-instated the slavery paragraph. I admit that there will be some editors, who perhaps because of their personal biography feel embarrassed about this important fact of British history. Such editors should try to leave their personal (but misdirected) sense of guilt by association out of their edits and instead concentrate on giving an accurate picture of this venerable, but deeply flawed, institution. Much love, Ackees (talk) 15:09, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The "slavery" paragraph has been removed as it does not meet Wikipedia guidelines. In particular, the first statement is not supported by the "reference" cited, and the remaining statements are not relevant to Lloyd's. Jsllll (talk) 16:14, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

>>> British shipping carried more than 3.25 million people into slavery

 not true..... the ships carried people who had already been enslaved by other Black Africans
 i think you cannot show us even one example of a British shipper who made a business 
 of enslaving previously-free people.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.196.92.213 (talk) 05:07, 30 June 2011 (UTC) 

Types of policies

This section of the article lists a policy for Ugly Betty's smile and America Ferrera's smile. I just want to point out Ugly Betty is an American TV show and does not have an actual smile. Also America Ferrera is the title character of the TV show. It seems that these entries are duplicates and I have consolidated them.

Origional:

   * America Ferrera's smile.
   * Ugly Betty's smile for $10 million.

Replacement:

   * America Ferrera's smile for $10 million.

75.69.0.58 (talk) 03:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"Funded by Taxpayers"

"During the 1970s, a number of issues arose which were to have significant influence on the course of the Society. The first was the tax structure in the UK: capital gains were taxed at 40 per cent, earned income was taxed in the top bracket at 83 per cent, and investment income in the top bracket at 98 per cent. Lloyd's income counted as earned income, even for Names who did not work at Lloyd's, and this heavily influenced the direction of underwriting: in short, it was desirable for syndicates to make a (small) underwriting loss but a (larger) investment profit. The losses were 98% funded by the taxpayer...."

Describing "reduced taxable investment income" as "funded by the taxpayer" may be less technical, but it is also contentious, for it assumes that (a) income redistribution is a right and (b) tax avoidance is illegitimate--both legitimate points of view, just not neutral ones. Or did the government write Lloyds a cheque for 98% of its losses? DaveDaytona (talk) 09:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

No the government did not write a cheque for 98% to Lloyd's. The names wrote or received their cheque and then settled their tax position with the Revenue. Compare with the present situation. These days the law is that if you make a gain of £1,000,000 you pay income tax on it at 40-50%. The next year if you lose £1,000,000 you get a tax credit (not repayment) of 40-50%, offsettable against gains arising only from the insurance trade. (This ignores tax payable "on account".) Kittybrewster ☎ 13:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

collapse of the Sasse syndicate and the disgrace of Christopher Moran

Can we clarify (or link) for "collapse of the Sasse syndicate and the disgrace of Christopher Moran"? RJFJR (talk) 19:52, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Done. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:38, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 20:24, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I have begun a "Timeline of significant events" which seems to me to be helpful. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:22, 19 April 2011 (UTC)