Champagne for the chaps
WE ALL HAVE our remedies for Lloyd's of London — dismantle it, say I — and a new and persuasive one reaches me from John Rew, the antibody in Lloyd's blood- stream. If Lloyd's did not pay so much money to the chaps who bring it business and the chaps who do the business, it would never have lost money for its members. In the four years from 1988 to 1991, Lloyd's lost £8 billion. Brokerage rose in those years, from £1.3 billion in 1988 and £1.6 bil- lion in 1989 to £2.1 billion in 1990 and again in 1991. Expenses rose from £750 million in 1988 and £840 million in 1989 to £1.1 billion in 1990 and £1.3 billion in 1991. Knock them all out and Lloyd's four lean years would have been four years of profit. As business got worse, Lloyd's seems to have paid more for it, and those who made that quixotic choice seem to have paid themselves more, too. There are companies — some life assurers, for instance — whose performance would improve out of all recognition if they sacked the staff and put the money in a building society. Can Lloyd's be one? Or could it be that if young men at Lloyd's spent less money on pouring champagne down themselves at Arthur's, the members could promote themselves from Lucozade?
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