The firm’s PPL volumes have also increased dramatically over the past year as more risks are placed in each eligible line of business, and new lines come into scope. The company has confirmed that between October 2017 and October 2018, its PPL placement volumes more than tripled. Willis Towers Watson is also the Market leader in its use of PPL’s submissions. In October 2018, Willis Towers Watson’s PPL activity accounted for more than 10% of all risks and endorsements bound and nearly 60% of all submissions presented in the London Market.
Nicolas Aubert, Head of Willis Towers Watson in Great Britain, said: “It is vitally important that PPL adoption continues to grow, and quickly. We fully support the idea of transparent league tables to encourage greater use, which is why we have decided to publish our own adoption figures and also support LIIBA’s efforts to develop a broker league table next year.
Willis Towers Watson closely monitors the progress in each line. We identify areas where we need improvement in PPL so that the user experience can be enhanced, but above all we have focused hard on driving high adoption of PPL from the very beginning of the risk transfer process. We are focused on end-to-end PPL usage, starting at the submission stage with the PPL quotation function, as this is the only true way to entrench PPL in the way the industry works, and I’m pleased to say we are a leading user of this functionality across some lines
A breakdown by line of business shows that, the highest PPL use among the firm’s major lines is in its Financial Lines business with consistently more than 80% of all eligible risks being placed on PPL.
Willis Towers Watson has been monitoring and analysing its PPL adoption rates across all lines for the past eighteen months and has developed a rich database of submissions, firm orders and endorsements over that period.
Aubert continued: “Across the industry the number of risks placed has nearly tripled in the past year and the number of broking firms binding risks has increased by nearly five times, so things are increasing steadily. The broking community is enormously important to the success of PPL. All risk transactions start with the broker so, to a great extent, it is the broker that determines whether the process is electronic or paper-based. One thing we know from our own analysis is that if a risk placement starts with the quotation function on PPL then it has a far greater chance of completing electronically.
“It is clear that, while the biggest broking firms dominated PPL use to start with, the rest of the broking community is now coming online and the volume of electronic placements is rising significantly. Ultimately the end goal has to be for underwriters and brokers to reach full adoption. Of course there are challenges to overcome but with the right organisational mind-set this is a highly achievable goal.”
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