Marine insurance markets. A market is an environment in which the buying and selling of goods or services is carried out.
These transactions can be carried out in a market place” but the word “market” is more applicable to the entire system, which therefore comprises a number of components, such as the buyers and the sellers and the middlemen.
There are insurance markets in many countries, the nature, extent and capacity being quite variable. The major markets are in the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and the Continent. There is considerable reinsurance between markets.
Here we shall deal with the London Market which is made up of:
(a) Lloyd’s of London;
(b) British insurance companies;
(c) agencies and branches of foreign insurance companies;
(d) Mutual Association managers;
(e) brokers (Lloyd’s brokers and others);
(f) assureds – shipowners and merchants.
In the United Kingdom, the major centre is in London with minor centres in Liverpool and Glasgow. In those cities the sellers are mainly the insurance companies not the mutual associations.
