To be secure or not to be secure! - Published by Insurance Times
Sending a letter from an individual is not normally a big legal problem. More or less, the postal service in the UK is resilient and birthday cards, bills etc. arrive at their destination fairly successfully. Even then the requirement for a legal dispute is unlikely. Anyway if a letter has to be sent from one party to another which has any potential legal implications the system allows for registered post which in a court of law only needs the sender to know that the recipient has received and signed for the letter or document. In the case of a company an employee signature suffices.In the Lloyd’s insurance market the business transaction is the ‘slip’ which is signed by the underwriter and can be presented to a court of law as a binding document.
Historically endorsements have also been signed as agreed by the same underwriters. The broker with a pack of paper information under his arm on a cold wet morning trailing along Lime Street has been testimony to this.
So far so good. However technology, in the form of ‘e-mail’, has been introduced as a very sensible idea but without any intelligence, planning or forward thinking. The London and global market has had ‘e-mail’ thrust upon it, which has resulted in solutions ‘a bit short of a byte’.
Technology has to be forced to be allied to business and if not it will happily carry on regardless and let the business practitioners face the music at a later date. The ball is definitely in the business mans court. Legally signed documents have been and always will be the acceptable face of legal argument. E-mail in the London insurance market is a time bomb in waiting and it is not a technology that will go away. The principles of the problem are actually very easy to understand. Firstly ‘e-mail’ and the Internet is very vulnerable to hackers, technology problems and general unstructured use and misuse. Hackers actually are not always to be blamed because the original system should not have been designed with holes in the structure, but the laziness which has accompanied the new technologies is endemic. Taking young smart fifteen-year-olds to court as Lloyd’s did last year verges on the pathetic because the underlying problem is a naive set of developers rather than troublesome and bright Internet literate children. Lloyd’s should be offering them jobs.
However the underlying problem for a market such is Lloyd’s is how to protect the future. It is no secret that the e-mails currently being sent around are in many cases not attached to the original policy details. Underwriters asked to agree changes in conditions which have been sent by e-mail do not have the system to attach the old and the new, that is paper to e-mail.
‘Wise’ have a big responsibility here because their ‘trusted trading’ system has so many holes that verge on a serious lack of professionalism. Interchange agreements are all well and good but they have to be upheld in a court of law. The fact is that the system is not secure, can be hacked at any point without any controls and the storage of messages has not been thought out. Storage must be on more than magnetic tapes, which again can be changed without any problem if the desire is there. Deep ‘worm drives’ which can be proved to be unassailable are the only legal answer.
The legal system is actually well switched on to these problems and is making recommendations, which the market should be listening to.
The longer that this situation exists the more problems that are being piled up. It cannot be too long before a reinsurer questions a claim which relates to a paper policy file and an e-mail change to conditions which have not been properly recorded or connected.
Of all of the London Market Procedures (LMP) which need urgent co-operation and agreement by the London insurance market this is a major and urgent concern. No broker or underwriter should take it light heartedly. The new body which will be running the Lloyd’s/London market should also ensure it is close to the top of the agenda. In fact it is not a rocket science solution as the technology is already there from professional providers of secure e-mail and it does not have any great impact on the ways the market carries out its face-to-face business.
The London market needs to sort this out or the lawyers will make millions on contentious claims in the future and the market could be culpable for its lack of action.
To be secure or not to be secure! - Published by Insurance Times
To be secure or not to be secure! - Published by Insurance Times
Sending a letter from an individual is not normally a big legal problem. More or less, the postal service in the UK is resilient and birthday cards, bills etc. arrive at their destination fairly successfully. Even then the requirement for a legal dispute is unlikely. Anyway if a letter has to be sent from one party to another which has any potential legal implications the system allows for registered post which in a court of law only needs the sender to know that the recipient has received and signed for the letter or document. In the case of a company an employee signature suffices.In the Lloyd’s insurance market the business transaction is the ‘slip’ which is signed by the underwriter and can be presented to a court of law as a binding document.
Historically endorsements have also been signed as agreed by the same underwriters. The broker with a pack of paper information under his arm on a cold wet morning trailing along Lime Street has been testimony to this.
So far so good. However technology, in the form of ‘e-mail’, has been introduced as a very sensible idea but without any intelligence, planning or forward thinking. The London and global market has had ‘e-mail’ thrust upon it, which has resulted in solutions ‘a bit short of a byte’.
Technology has to be forced to be allied to business and if not it will happily carry on regardless and let the business practitioners face the music at a later date. The ball is definitely in the business mans court. Legally signed documents have been and always will be the acceptable face of legal argument. E-mail in the London insurance market is a time bomb in waiting and it is not a technology that will go away. The principles of the problem are actually very easy to understand. Firstly ‘e-mail’ and the Internet is very vulnerable to hackers, technology problems and general unstructured use and misuse. Hackers actually are not always to be blamed because the original system should not have been designed with holes in the structure, but the laziness which has accompanied the new technologies is endemic. Taking young smart fifteen-year-olds to court as Lloyd’s did last year verges on the pathetic because the underlying problem is a naive set of developers rather than troublesome and bright Internet literate children. Lloyd’s should be offering them jobs.
However the underlying problem for a market such is Lloyd’s is how to protect the future. It is no secret that the e-mails currently being sent around are in many cases not attached to the original policy details. Underwriters asked to agree changes in conditions which have been sent by e-mail do not have the system to attach the old and the new, that is paper to e-mail.
‘Wise’ have a big responsibility here because their ‘trusted trading’ system has so many holes that verge on a serious lack of professionalism. Interchange agreements are all well and good but they have to be upheld in a court of law. The fact is that the system is not secure, can be hacked at any point without any controls and the storage of messages has not been thought out. Storage must be on more than magnetic tapes, which again can be changed without any problem if the desire is there. Deep ‘worm drives’ which can be proved to be unassailable are the only legal answer.
The legal system is actually well switched on to these problems and is making recommendations, which the market should be listening to.
The longer that this situation exists the more problems that are being piled up. It cannot be too long before a reinsurer questions a claim which relates to a paper policy file and an e-mail change to conditions which have not been properly recorded or connected.
Of all of the London Market Procedures (LMP) which need urgent co-operation and agreement by the London insurance market this is a major and urgent concern. No broker or underwriter should take it light heartedly. The new body which will be running the Lloyd’s/London market should also ensure it is close to the top of the agenda. In fact it is not a rocket science solution as the technology is already there from professional providers of secure e-mail and it does not have any great impact on the ways the market carries out its face-to-face business.
The London market needs to sort this out or the lawyers will make millions on contentious claims in the future and the market could be culpable for its lack of action.
Sending a letter from an individual is not normally a big legal problem. More or less, the postal service in the UK is resilient and birthday cards, bills etc. arrive at their destination fairly successfully. Even then the requirement for a legal dispute is unlikely. Anyway if a letter has to be sent from one party to another which has any potential legal implications the system allows for registered post which in a court of law only needs the sender to know that the recipient has received and signed for the letter or document. In the case of a company an employee signature suffices.In the Lloyd’s insurance market the business transaction is the ‘slip’ which is signed by the underwriter and can be presented to a court of law as a binding document.
Historically endorsements have also been signed as agreed by the same underwriters. The broker with a pack of paper information under his arm on a cold wet morning trailing along Lime Street has been testimony to this.
So far so good. However technology, in the form of ‘e-mail’, has been introduced as a very sensible idea but without any intelligence, planning or forward thinking. The London and global market has had ‘e-mail’ thrust upon it, which has resulted in solutions ‘a bit short of a byte’.
Technology has to be forced to be allied to business and if not it will happily carry on regardless and let the business practitioners face the music at a later date. The ball is definitely in the business mans court. Legally signed documents have been and always will be the acceptable face of legal argument. E-mail in the London insurance market is a time bomb in waiting and it is not a technology that will go away. The principles of the problem are actually very easy to understand. Firstly ‘e-mail’ and the Internet is very vulnerable to hackers, technology problems and general unstructured use and misuse. Hackers actually are not always to be blamed because the original system should not have been designed with holes in the structure, but the laziness which has accompanied the new technologies is endemic. Taking young smart fifteen-year-olds to court as Lloyd’s did last year verges on the pathetic because the underlying problem is a naive set of developers rather than troublesome and bright Internet literate children. Lloyd’s should be offering them jobs.
However the underlying problem for a market such is Lloyd’s is how to protect the future. It is no secret that the e-mails currently being sent around are in many cases not attached to the original policy details. Underwriters asked to agree changes in conditions which have been sent by e-mail do not have the system to attach the old and the new, that is paper to e-mail.
‘Wise’ have a big responsibility here because their ‘trusted trading’ system has so many holes that verge on a serious lack of professionalism. Interchange agreements are all well and good but they have to be upheld in a court of law. The fact is that the system is not secure, can be hacked at any point without any controls and the storage of messages has not been thought out. Storage must be on more than magnetic tapes, which again can be changed without any problem if the desire is there. Deep ‘worm drives’ which can be proved to be unassailable are the only legal answer.
The legal system is actually well switched on to these problems and is making recommendations, which the market should be listening to.
The longer that this situation exists the more problems that are being piled up. It cannot be too long before a reinsurer questions a claim which relates to a paper policy file and an e-mail change to conditions which have not been properly recorded or connected.
Of all of the London Market Procedures (LMP) which need urgent co-operation and agreement by the London insurance market this is a major and urgent concern. No broker or underwriter should take it light heartedly. The new body which will be running the Lloyd’s/London market should also ensure it is close to the top of the agenda. In fact it is not a rocket science solution as the technology is already there from professional providers of secure e-mail and it does not have any great impact on the ways the market carries out its face-to-face business.
The London market needs to sort this out or the lawyers will make millions on contentious claims in the future and the market could be culpable for its lack of action.
To be secure or not to be secure! - Published by Insurance Times
Sending a letter from an individual is not normally a big legal problem. More or less, the postal service in the UK is resilient and birthday cards, bills etc. arrive at their destination fairly successfully. Even then the requirement for a legal dispute is unlikely. Anyway if a letter has to be sent from one party to another which has any potential legal implications the system allows for registered post which in a court of law only needs the sender to know that the recipient has received and signed for the letter or document. In the case of a company an employee signature suffices.In the Lloyd’s insurance market the business transaction is the ‘slip’ which is signed by the underwriter and can be presented to a court of law as a binding document.
Historically endorsements have also been signed as agreed by the same underwriters. The broker with a pack of paper information under his arm on a cold wet morning trailing along Lime Street has been testimony to this.
So far so good. However technology, in the form of ‘e-mail’, has been introduced as a very sensible idea but without any intelligence, planning or forward thinking. The London and global market has had ‘e-mail’ thrust upon it, which has resulted in solutions ‘a bit short of a byte’.
Technology has to be forced to be allied to business and if not it will happily carry on regardless and let the business practitioners face the music at a later date. The ball is definitely in the business mans court. Legally signed documents have been and always will be the acceptable face of legal argument. E-mail in the London insurance market is a time bomb in waiting and it is not a technology that will go away. The principles of the problem are actually very easy to understand. Firstly ‘e-mail’ and the Internet is very vulnerable to hackers, technology problems and general unstructured use and misuse. Hackers actually are not always to be blamed because the original system should not have been designed with holes in the structure, but the laziness which has accompanied the new technologies is endemic. Taking young smart fifteen-year-olds to court as Lloyd’s did last year verges on the pathetic because the underlying problem is a naive set of developers rather than troublesome and bright Internet literate children. Lloyd’s should be offering them jobs.
However the underlying problem for a market such is Lloyd’s is how to protect the future. It is no secret that the e-mails currently being sent around are in many cases not attached to the original policy details. Underwriters asked to agree changes in conditions which have been sent by e-mail do not have the system to attach the old and the new, that is paper to e-mail.
‘Wise’ have a big responsibility here because their ‘trusted trading’ system has so many holes that verge on a serious lack of professionalism. Interchange agreements are all well and good but they have to be upheld in a court of law. The fact is that the system is not secure, can be hacked at any point without any controls and the storage of messages has not been thought out. Storage must be on more than magnetic tapes, which again can be changed without any problem if the desire is there. Deep ‘worm drives’ which can be proved to be unassailable are the only legal answer.
The legal system is actually well switched on to these problems and is making recommendations, which the market should be listening to.
The longer that this situation exists the more problems that are being piled up. It cannot be too long before a reinsurer questions a claim which relates to a paper policy file and an e-mail change to conditions which have not been properly recorded or connected.
Of all of the London Market Procedures (LMP) which need urgent co-operation and agreement by the London insurance market this is a major and urgent concern. No broker or underwriter should take it light heartedly. The new body which will be running the Lloyd’s/London market should also ensure it is close to the top of the agenda. In fact it is not a rocket science solution as the technology is already there from professional providers of secure e-mail and it does not have any great impact on the ways the market carries out its face-to-face business.
The London market needs to sort this out or the lawyers will make millions on contentious claims in the future and the market could be culpable for its lack of action.
Sending a letter from an individual is not normally a big legal problem. More or less, the postal service in the UK is resilient and birthday cards, bills etc. arrive at their destination fairly successfully. Even then the requirement for a legal dispute is unlikely. Anyway if a letter has to be sent from one party to another which has any potential legal implications the system allows for registered post which in a court of law only needs the sender to know that the recipient has received and signed for the letter or document. In the case of a company an employee signature suffices.In the Lloyd’s insurance market the business transaction is the ‘slip’ which is signed by the underwriter and can be presented to a court of law as a binding document.
Historically endorsements have also been signed as agreed by the same underwriters. The broker with a pack of paper information under his arm on a cold wet morning trailing along Lime Street has been testimony to this.
So far so good. However technology, in the form of ‘e-mail’, has been introduced as a very sensible idea but without any intelligence, planning or forward thinking. The London and global market has had ‘e-mail’ thrust upon it, which has resulted in solutions ‘a bit short of a byte’.
Technology has to be forced to be allied to business and if not it will happily carry on regardless and let the business practitioners face the music at a later date. The ball is definitely in the business mans court. Legally signed documents have been and always will be the acceptable face of legal argument. E-mail in the London insurance market is a time bomb in waiting and it is not a technology that will go away. The principles of the problem are actually very easy to understand. Firstly ‘e-mail’ and the Internet is very vulnerable to hackers, technology problems and general unstructured use and misuse. Hackers actually are not always to be blamed because the original system should not have been designed with holes in the structure, but the laziness which has accompanied the new technologies is endemic. Taking young smart fifteen-year-olds to court as Lloyd’s did last year verges on the pathetic because the underlying problem is a naive set of developers rather than troublesome and bright Internet literate children. Lloyd’s should be offering them jobs.
However the underlying problem for a market such is Lloyd’s is how to protect the future. It is no secret that the e-mails currently being sent around are in many cases not attached to the original policy details. Underwriters asked to agree changes in conditions which have been sent by e-mail do not have the system to attach the old and the new, that is paper to e-mail.
‘Wise’ have a big responsibility here because their ‘trusted trading’ system has so many holes that verge on a serious lack of professionalism. Interchange agreements are all well and good but they have to be upheld in a court of law. The fact is that the system is not secure, can be hacked at any point without any controls and the storage of messages has not been thought out. Storage must be on more than magnetic tapes, which again can be changed without any problem if the desire is there. Deep ‘worm drives’ which can be proved to be unassailable are the only legal answer.
The legal system is actually well switched on to these problems and is making recommendations, which the market should be listening to.
The longer that this situation exists the more problems that are being piled up. It cannot be too long before a reinsurer questions a claim which relates to a paper policy file and an e-mail change to conditions which have not been properly recorded or connected.
Of all of the London Market Procedures (LMP) which need urgent co-operation and agreement by the London insurance market this is a major and urgent concern. No broker or underwriter should take it light heartedly. The new body which will be running the Lloyd’s/London market should also ensure it is close to the top of the agenda. In fact it is not a rocket science solution as the technology is already there from professional providers of secure e-mail and it does not have any great impact on the ways the market carries out its face-to-face business.
The London market needs to sort this out or the lawyers will make millions on contentious claims in the future and the market could be culpable for its lack of action.
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To be secure or not to be secure! - Published by Insurance Times
Published on 19/09/2001 12:09:00
Sending a letter from an individual is not normally a big legal problem. More or less, the postal service in the UK is resilient and birthday cards, bills etc. arrive at their destination fairly successfully. Even then the requirement for a legal dispute is unlikely. Anyway if a letter has to be sent from one party to another which has any potential legal implications the system allows for registered post which in a court of law only needs the sender to know that the recipient has received and signed for the letter or document. In the case of a company an employee signature suffices.In the Lloyd’s insurance market the business transaction is the ‘slip’ which is signed by the underwriter and can be presented to a court of law as a binding document.
Historically endorsements have also been signed as agreed by the same underwriters. The broker with a pack of paper information under his arm on a cold wet morning trailing along Lime Street has been testimony to this.
So far so good. However technology, in the form of ‘e-mail’, has been introduced as a very sensible idea but without any intelligence, planning or forward thinking. The London and global market has had ‘e-mail’ thrust upon it, which has resulted in solutions ‘a bit short of a byte’.
Technology has to be forced to be allied to business and if not it will happily carry on regardless and let the business practitioners face the music at a later date. The ball is definitely in the business mans court. Legally signed documents have been and always will be the acceptable face of legal argument. E-mail in the London insurance market is a time bomb in waiting and it is not a technology that will go away. The principles of the problem are actually very easy to understand. Firstly ‘e-mail’ and the Internet is very vulnerable to hackers, technology problems and general unstructured use and misuse. Hackers actually are not always to be blamed because the original system should not have been designed with holes in the structure, but the laziness which has accompanied the new technologies is endemic. Taking young smart fifteen-year-olds to court as Lloyd’s did last year verges on the pathetic because the underlying problem is a naive set of developers rather than troublesome and bright Internet literate children. Lloyd’s should be offering them jobs.
However the underlying problem for a market such is Lloyd’s is how to protect the future. It is no secret that the e-mails currently being sent around are in many cases not attached to the original policy details. Underwriters asked to agree changes in conditions which have been sent by e-mail do not have the system to attach the old and the new, that is paper to e-mail.
‘Wise’ have a big responsibility here because their ‘trusted trading’ system has so many holes that verge on a serious lack of professionalism. Interchange agreements are all well and good but they have to be upheld in a court of law. The fact is that the system is not secure, can be hacked at any point without any controls and the storage of messages has not been thought out. Storage must be on more than magnetic tapes, which again can be changed without any problem if the desire is there. Deep ‘worm drives’ which can be proved to be unassailable are the only legal answer.
The legal system is actually well switched on to these problems and is making recommendations, which the market should be listening to.
The longer that this situation exists the more problems that are being piled up. It cannot be too long before a reinsurer questions a claim which relates to a paper policy file and an e-mail change to conditions which have not been properly recorded or connected.
Of all of the London Market Procedures (LMP) which need urgent co-operation and agreement by the London insurance market this is a major and urgent concern. No broker or underwriter should take it light heartedly. The new body which will be running the Lloyd’s/London market should also ensure it is close to the top of the agenda. In fact it is not a rocket science solution as the technology is already there from professional providers of secure e-mail and it does not have any great impact on the ways the market carries out its face-to-face business.
The London market needs to sort this out or the lawyers will make millions on contentious claims in the future and the market could be culpable for its lack of action.
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