From the temple of insurance, a deity arrives

MUMBAI: A piece of history and a part of a seventeenth century London coffee shop fable on Wednesday became India’s pride.

Called the Lloyd’s box, the horse-shoe table and a few chairs surrounding it, will now be permanently showcased at the National Insurance Academy (NIA), Pune.

The box, which is the trading ring where brokers and syndicates sat and conducted business those days, is one of the two witnesses to the origins of a business called insurance.

The other witness, the Lloyd’s Bell, strikes once whenever a ship sinks anywhere in the world and twice whenever a long overdue ship returns. The Lloyd’s Box has a replica, and it is buried under the Lloyd’s building as a time capsule.

Lloyd’s members, or capital providers, accept business from brokers and companies from various parts of the world, and runs it as syndicates. Each syndicate is run by a managing agent, who presides over the Lloyd’s Box. Today, there are 62 such syndicates.

The foundations of the Lloyd’s market, which acts like a street market for members and stakeholders, was laid by a group of marine underwriters at the Edward Lloyd’s coffee shop in 1688.

The Lloyd’s box was set up after they shifted operations to what is now known as the Lloyd’s building in London - the family temple of the global insurance industry.

According to NIA director K C Mishra, the various racks all over the furniture store the policy documents of the shipping insurance business undertaken those days and the papers will be shipped to the institute later.

The box’s arrival on Indian shores on Wednesday, though, had a typical desi twist.

When it arrived in Mumbai in 19 packets, weighing 4,327 kg, the customs authorities served Mishra with a show-cause notice as to how he can receive such an antique piece without proper evaluation.

The issue was later amicably settled, but the valuation question remains a mystery.
According to Mishra, no one has a clue about the proper value of the antique, and Marsh & McLennan Companies, the international brokerage house, a Lloyd’s member, which swung the deal for NIA, is not ready to come out with any figure. A conservative estimate would put the value of the box at millions of dollars.

It was shipped to Australia from London two years back. It was when the Australian government decided not to buy the box at a “huge amount” and start its own Lloyd’s, Mishra requested Marsh to donate it to India. Marsh had become the owners of the box after it acquired British brokerage firm Bowring, which was originally in possession of it.

Mishra was lucky enough to have one of his students, Sanjay Kedia, as the head of Marsh’s India operations. Sort of a guru dakshina, the Lloyd’s Box is now at the NIA’s Greenleaf room, named after former AT&T executive and propounder of the servant-leadership management principle.

So, if  they’ve the Kohinoor, we’ve the Lloyd’s Box.