ABSTRACT
On the face of it, insurance is one of the most successful sections of the City. Despite growing competition from New York and the Continent, it remains the largest international insurance market in the world. The total net life and non-life premium income earned by Lloyd's in 1981 was £2,258 million; the income of the insurance companies* in that year was £17,988 million, and £22,821 million in 1983. Together this is some 7 per cent of world premium income and 10 per cent of the Gross National Product of the United Kingdom. It is also a big foreign currency earner. Indeed, insurance is roughly level pegging with banking as the City's biggest invisible earning, reaching £1.6 billion in 1983. It is also (thanks largely to life assurance) the second largest single source of investment funds in the country, after the pension funds. It finds a home for over £20 million of new money every day.
