LLOYD'S of London, the British insurance market, yesterday offered a new olive branch to its Names, the private investors in Lloyd's, which is aimed to end the (crisis that has gripped the market for the past eight years.
Lloyd's increased its settlement offer from £2.8 billion sterling to £3.1 billion and said Names would have to pay £900 million less than expected to leave the market.
At a press conference, Lloyd's chairman Mr David Rowland said he was confident the new package would win over the 34,000 Names. More than a third of Names have engaged in legal battles with Lloyd's, claiming that negligence was to blame for a string of "disastrous" contracts.
Between 1988 and 1992, the market ran up losses of £8 billion after a series of disasters such as Hurricane Hugo in the Gulf of Mexico and an explosion on the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea.
The Names have been offered a payout of £3.1 billion that covers compensation payments and debt write offs.
Mr Christopher Stockwell, chairman of the Lloyd's Names Association Working Party, which groups 20,000 Names, said he would not recommend the new offer because it did not include a levy on the future revenue of Lloyd's.
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