Actuarial Aspects of Claims Reserving in the London Market

This paper is presented in two parts. The first part provides the reader with an overview of the London Market. The main participants in the market, the type of business written, methods of placing business and some aspects of accounting conventions are described. The role of the actuary is also described.The second part of the paper then focuses on reserving in the market. Potential problems and limitations of data are described. In some cases simplified examples have been used and they are shown in the Appendix, together with a short description. Note that these examples are fictitious and that they are included only to provide the reader with illustrations of certain points made are the text. The detailed considerations of loss reserving methods are outside the scope of this paper.