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SECTION 2
“BUSINESS MEETS FAME”
It was only a short time later, that London's most important insurance contract lay on my desk - the "LONDON MASTER OFFSHORE SLIP".
John was in awe.
"The things that recently land on your desk recently are beyond me"
He said.
"The fact that this slip is on your table with you is not really not normal, after all, we are small players on the big one Market."
"Shall we play or not"
Was my question and I gave John a glaring look. What should I say - I was likewise stunned. True, Over time I had met a number of broker colleagues from other firms. I quickly grasped that the Market was structured differently from the one on the continent. Amongst the Lloyd’s brokers there was an internal solidarity based on professional respect and the feeling of working for the corporation and the insurers linked within it. As a consequence it was not unusual that bigger or more problematic risks were shared among the brokers and the „slips“ flow between the various broking houses, with the intention that every insurer, to whom the best contacts were held by one or the other broker, would take shares in the risk to be insured. The best example from that time was the „London Master offshore Slip“, which was marketed in common by three prominent brokers: Sedgwick, C.T. Bowring, and Jenner, Fenton & Slade. The placement for risks covered under this contract was difficult because the insured amounts were huge and demanded the total available market capacity.
But it was my close personal relationship with a director of Jenner Fenton, James Brewer, my crew mate on board Hullabaloo at the infamous Fastnet Race -years back - that had brought this about. Irrespective that we both were active in the esoteric area of insurance of political risks, and did not just swap ideas, we also helped each other reciprocally. Sometimes on trips we met the same clients, but that never led to problems. We came to arrangements. So it happened that on this background one day James spoke to me and said:
„Harry, you’ve got a close personal relationship with Brian of Orion and Stuart Helman. I was thinking you might present the ‚offshore‘ slip and might ask for ‚courtesy shares‘. They’ve never yet been on the slip, and together with the other brokers we’d have just covered 87.5% at this moment and time is passing quickly.“
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