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The insurers sit in boxes, in the middle a table and leather-covered benches on both sides. The leather is green (like the armchairs in my office, I think, which gives me a reason to feel a special, irrational link with that different and powerful insurance Market. Quite ridiculous, but I am a sucker for symbols and signs).
In front of the boxes are long queues of brokers waiting to present risks. The boxes belong to so-called syndicates and are numbered. They represent associations of Risk Takers who, in the case of private persons, at the moment they join Lloyd’s, sign a blank cheque for unlimited personal liability, in some cases with catastrophic consequences, as would turn out later. Many individuals lose everything they own, their money, their investments and their estates, and a number of them commit suicide when Lloyd’s was afflicted by the greatest crisis in its history, the „asbestos crisis“ that would develop with its full impact in the middle of the 1990’s, but became visible to insiders as early as 1982 and gave rise to many court cases and cast a dark shadow on Lloyd’s and its business practices. But this is in the future then we steer to box 126, one of the biggest on the Lloyd’s trading floor. We have an appointment with Michael Baxter, the deputy of Ian Posgate, who at that time is the most successful insurer in the whole Market, known as „Goldfinger“. Terence and Michael obviously know each other well, as I observe immediately, and Michael and I spontaneously like each other, which is helpful and serves the purpose. Michael agrees with the entire reinsurance concept as presented. Then we visit the wine bar The City Flogger in Fenchurch Street, which as most wine bars is located in the basement. No windows and the floor covered with sawdust to allow for easier clean up of the mess usually left by the brokers after their lunch time bout.
After enjoying plenty of Burgundy, accompanied by "shepherd's pie," we boldly decide to increase our cooperation. Michael favors the new business model. It is like we found each other. A "Brotherhood" had been formed over Lunch. A new phenomenon for me - possible only to be found in London and if the chemistry is right. He will become my future powerful ally in marine insurance, at least for a time, as nothing lasts forever and fate is full of turbulence. Michael agrees to Agios being the "leading underwriter", a small, undercapitalized and quite unimportant insurance company in Hamburg, which is owned by a private individual, the parvenu Klaus Friedrich Weyrauch, shunned by the establishment, and which by no means could meet the financial obligations to which I am going to commit the company on paper. So AGIOS is coming into the limelight - a new dimension of opportunity opens up. It is like arbitrage business. In those days not a really respectable business practice. In today’s world the norm.
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