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Lloyd’s of London chief executive John Neal will leave the world’s oldest insurance market this year to take a new job leading the reinsurance and climate divisions at Aon, one of the industry’s biggest brokers.
Neal’s departure from one of the City of London’s top jobs comes as Lloyd’s prepares for former Treasury civil servant Sir Charles Roxburgh to replace Bruce Carnegie-Brown as its chair in May.
“In an ideal world, if this was going to happen, it would have happened a little bit later,” Carnegie-Brown told the Financial Times. “We didn’t have much forewarning.”
Carnegie-Brown said Neal had a 12-month notice period but predicted that the departing chief executive would stay on until the end of this summer, with Roxburgh leading the process to find a replacement when he takes over as chair.
Aon said Neal would join the broker following his notice period.
Neal was appointed to lead Lloyd’s in 2018. He steered the market through the disruption of Covid-19, preserving face-to-face trading and overseeing a recovery in profitability despite surging losses from natural catastrophes, helping Lloyd’s to deliver its best underwriting performance since 2007.
Neal had “helped restore confidence in the Lloyd’s marketplace”, said Sheila Cameron, chief executive of the Lloyd’s Market Association, which represents insurers.
But he also drew criticism over delays to a big IT project aimed at replacing the market’s decades-old back-office systems.
Carnegie-Brown said that before departing Neal would help to prepare the market for the completion of the system change. “He may not be around for that [completion], but he’s very conscious of his responsibility to help make that happen,” he added.
Lloyds’ underwriting profit jumped to £5.9bn in 2023, up from £2.6bn the previous year. The market could now be entering a softening cycle, however, with prices coming down in many insurance classes.
In December 2023, Lloyd’s and landlord Ping An struck a deal for the insurance market to remain at its One Lime Street headquarters until at least 2035.
Neal’s move was first reported by Insurance Insider and was confirmed by the companies on Wednesday.
Neal’s title at Aon will be global chair of climate solutions and global CEO of reinsurance. The company said he would join “at a critical time as businesses and communities around the world must tackle increasing volatility driven by climate-related events”.
Aon chief executive Greg Case said Neal was “one of the true icons of our industry” and would remain based in London in his new role.
