Share this page

There are a number of compelling reasons to consider investing in Lloyd’s syndicates:

Make your existing equity and bond investments work harder

Investing in syndicates entails providing capital to support their underwriting. You can provide this capital by pledging existing investments as security, thus enabling them to work harder.

Re/insurance has low correlation with the wider economy

The ups and downs of re/insurance pricing – and thus profitability – have some drivers that are not directly linked to the economy, such as the occurrence of natural disasters, war, shipping accidents, etc. This allows you to diversify your investment portfolio.

If you are in the re/insurance business yourself, access to new products or regions

The Lloyd’s market is renowned for the range of insurance lines it writes globally as well as its ability to innovate in terms of coverage and distribution. Investing in syndicates allows an insurer to harness the economic opportunities of product lines or regions that it doesn’t already write without the investment and execution risk required to enter the market itself. There is scope to move beyond an investment relationship with syndicates and consider a knowledge-sharing partnership or product development initiatives.


Why invest in Lloyd's?

There are three key benefits to investing at Lloyd’s.

Strong returns

Returns on capital will vary according to the level of diversification and risk in a portfolio. However, Argenta’s clients have enjoyed a successful run of results – including average annualised returns for investors in excess of 10% over the last 14 years to 2022.

 

Low correlation

Lloyd’s investments exhibit a low correlation with other more traditional assets and therefore can provide valuable diversification for investors seeking to spread risk amongst alternative asset classes.

Double use of assets

Another of the significant attractions to underwriting at Lloyd’s is the potential to use certain investment assets twice. The collateral to support underwriting does not have to be paid up in advance in cash but can be provided via a bank guarantee or letter of credit secured on a portion of an existing investment portfolio. For example, this can enable investors to retain income and gains on a portfolio of property outside of their principal private residence whilst also benefiting from insurance returns from Lloyd’s. When used in a qualifying trade such as Lloyd’s, the same assets may also benefit from Business Relief for Inheritance Tax purposes, making Lloyd’s vehicles an interesting estate planning consideration.

Core assets: Cash, government bonds, IG corporate funds, bond funds

Non-core assets: Sub-IG corporate bonds, government bonds, bond funds, equities, equity funds and VCTs

Other: Letters of Credit and guarantees


How investors participate

Lloyd’s syndicates have to hold capital in trust in order to underwrite. This is to protect policyholders in the event that claims and expenses exceed premiums received. This capital can be provided in full by their parent company, or it can be provided in part by investors. In exchange for contributing capital, investors receive a share of the syndicate result.

Generally, diversifying your portfolio across a number of syndicates improves your return on capital via diversification credit, though syndicate selection is critical. It is not possible to pick individual lines of business, sectors or jurisdictions that you want to include, just syndicates. Argenta can help you manage your business mix by choosing syndicates that write your in-appetite segments or avoid the out-of-appetite ones. 

You should view investing at Lloyd’s as a medium- to long-term strategy. Typically, capital is tied up for several years and you should expect to see paper losses in the first one or two years before a realised profit from year three.

We can advise you on the appropriate structure for your investment as well as the portfolio of syndicates that would fit your appetite.  We will manage the Lloyd’s application process, establish the necessary corporate vehicles, prepare accounts and provide company secretarial services.

Considerations for structuring include:

  • Whether you want to invest in a single syndicate or multiple syndicates
  • Whether you can or want to own a corporate vehicle
  • Whether it would be preferable to inject capital via equity, debt or a collateralised reinsurance
  • Whether you want to create something bespoke, or use the London Bridge structure

There are a number of routes available, enabling us to create a structure that works for you. There is usually a six to nine month lead-in time from initial interest to putting your money to work.


Our use of cookies

We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We’d also like to set optional analytics cookies to help us improve it. We won’t set optional cookies unless you enable them. Using this tool will set a cookie on your device to remember your preferences.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Cookie policy


Analytics cookies

We’d like to set Google Analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Cookie policy

: