About Lloyds of London Insurance

Securing against a potential financial loss is actually something that people have been doing for a very long time. It goes back many thousands of years. Insuring instruments of the past would likely take a very different form than we recognize today. Some early forms of a written guarantee of delivery were likely the first candidate. These would be considered cargo insurance today, and may have been underwritten by everyone from the ancient Pharaohs to the Knights Templar, monarchs and aristocrats, even the Vatican. Who might have done it first can probably never be known, as records were often lost to antiquity. It's quite possible that the Egyptians adopted the practice from the Sumerian culture.

In 1860, a newspaper advertisement offered a reward of one guinea for information about stolen watches in the city. The reward could be collected at the Lloyd's Coffee House on Tower Street. About the same time in history, England was experiencing an increase in demand for coffee as well as an increasing demand for marine cargo coverage to ensure those vessels that were shipping the coffee, copper, cotton, wool, and many other goods from around the world.

The organized insuring capital that has evolved into the modern insurance industry we find familiar today is most often attributed to a London coffee house owned by Edward Lloyd, beginning at some time in 1686 on Tower Street in the City of London. It was a popular place for sailors, Merchants, and ship-owners to gather and exchange the latest shipping news. Soon, patrons began to form groups of like-minded investors interested in the security of the valuables transported by the shipping industry of the day. These Lloyds groups' first ventures took the form of Cargo delivery guarantees. After some years of gathering profit and loss experience in the shipping of a myriad of goods around the globe. The groups began extending coverage offerings to also include the value of the valuable vessels that carried the cargo. In 1688, a group of businessmen met at Edward Lloyd's Coffee House on Tower Street in London. At this particular meeting, the subject was the formation of a cargo insurance syndicate to secure commerce on he high seas. The first known printed mention is said to have appeared in late 1680 with an advertisement in the London Gazette.

London coffee house. The first recorded opening was in 1652. It provided a meeting place in the city of London where merchants could meet and talk over their various business enterprises, as well as politics and other popular issues of the day. Their popularity as places for business meetings, negotiations, or transactions is established very quickly.

When the English Civil War ended, the importance of London as an international trade center resulted in a steady increase in demand for coverage of all types. Though primarily for ships and their cargo, business was conducted in a less formal manner than it is today. Commercial Property Insurance covers the risk of property loss in a variety of situations, including commercial buildings, equipment, furniture, fixtures, inventories, business records, supplies, and other physical items. Your Property coverage may offer two types of property protection: Direct losses may be covered when property is lost, stolen, damaged, or destroyed. Indirect or consequential losses related to direct losses may also be covered.

Today, Lloyd’s is the world’s leading marketplace for underwriting commercial, corporate, and specialty insurance and reinsurance. Finding home and property insurance can be challenging for individuals with poor credit or other economic difficulties, leading to potential negative impacts on their credit standing. However, investors can still access quality property and home coverage through Lloyd’s Markets. These programs are rated differently and are often provided through specialized homeowners insurance policy forms instead of traditional offerings. Some insurance markets may restrict their non-credit-scored homeowners insurance to HO-1 or HOA type policies for owner-occupied properties, and DP1, DP2, and DP3 policy forms for tenant-occupied rental properties.