By Zuhara Yusoff
Lloyd’s has announced that it is closing its underwriting floors for 24 hours and invoking its emergency trading protocol in order to test alternatives in view of COVID-19.
The underwriting floors at its London headquarters at 1 Lime Street will be closed for 24-hours on Friday, 13 March – the first time that this has happened in its 334-year history.
The exercise is part of its efforts to ramp up its business continuity preparations and reassure the market, its employees and customers in the event of an escalation of contingency measures due to COVID-19. The exercise will provide valuable information on the real-life effectiveness of its emergency protocol, said Lloyd’s. Relevant regulators have been informed of the plans.
The 24-hour closure will also allow a deep clean of the four floors that make up the underwriting room and all public areas in the Lloyd’s building to be carried out.
The move to shut the underwriting room, used by nearly 5,000 employees, comes after the coronavirus epidemic was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The UK now has 590 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
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