JADROAGENT Ltd. - Rijeka the biggest Shipping and Freight Agency in Croatia

Home

Lloyd's History:

The name Lloyd's is derived from the enterprise of Edward Lloyd who kept a Coffee House in the City of London in the 17th century. A practice arose for Marine Underwriters to resort to his Coffee House to transact their business. Edward Lloyd started his Coffee House in Great Tower Street about 1688, and moved it to Abchurch Lane in 1692. Underwriters would sit there to do business, and merchants or brokers who desired to effect insurance would go there to deal with them. Any policy so effected was, of course, a contract made with the Underwriters who signed it, and Edward Lloyd, who was merely landlord of Coffee House, was no party to any such contract. Every policy was in the form which is still used, by which Lloyd's Underwriters sign it - "each one for his own part, &c."

Besides keeping the Coffee House, Edward Lloyd in 1696 started a newspaper of shipping and other intelligence, which was of service to his customers in providing them with information. But his main function was to provide a room in which they could do business which took the place of an "Exchange" or "Bourse" as a place of meeting.

Later on, after the death of Edward Lloyd, it was found convenient for Marine Underwriters to have a similar place of business, and in 1770 the "Society of Lloyd's", as a voluntary association, provided rooms for its members in Pope's Head Alley. Still later this Society moved to rooms in the Royal Exchange, where it remained till 1928, when it moved to its own building in Leadenhall Street. The Society, which until 1871 had been a sort of private Club with the committee of management, was then incorporated by an Act of Parliament as the Corporation of Lloyd's. The Act opens with a recital that "there has long existed in the City of London an Establishment or Society formerly held at Lloyd's Coffee House &c."

The function of Lloyd's, as a Corporation, are similar, though on an enormously increased scale, to that of the Coffee House keeper from whom it derives its name. It provides Rooms where its Members may transact their business, and it publishes, daily, "Lloyd's List" which is the descendant of the newspaper founded in 1696.

Lloyd's Agents are appointed to be Agents of the Corporation of Lloyd's in its capacity, and are not appointed as Agents of the Underwriters in respect of the private business done by them in the Rooms of Lloyd's. As already indicated, one of the functions of Lloyd's as a Corporation, in additions to that of providing the Rooms for their Members, is to collect and distribute information of shipping movements, casualties and other happenings of interest to their Members and to the commercial community generally. It is primarily for the purpose of assisting the corporation in the collection of this information that Lloyd's Agents are appointed.

Though by the form and nature of their appointment Lloyd's Agents are not, as such, Agents of the individual Underwriters, it has become customary for Lloyd's Underwriters and Marine Insurance Companies to put a note on policies underwritten by them that, in the event of loss or damage, the settlement of the claim will be facilitated if Lloyd's Agents are called in to survey. In this way Underwriters intimate to the assured that they prefer the assessment of damage to be made by the persons who have been selected and appointed by the Corporation of Lloyd's to act as Lloyd's Agents, as those persons thereby hold a status which is recognised in the commercial community and they also have the advantage of having been supplied by the Corporation of Lloyd's with notes for their guidance, and standard forms for use, when dealing with such matters.

Home