Insurance Jottings
Standard Club Article: MV EVER GIVEN – Suez Canal Grounding – Member Alert
This Standard Club member alert is intended to give members some topical guidance on some of the many issues that the shipping world faces as a result of the grounding of the MV Ever Given in the Suez Canal on 23 March 2021.
See the link here for the announcement: https://www.standard-club.com/risk-management/knowledge-centre/news-and-commentary/2021/03/article-mv-ever-given-suez-canal-grounding-member-alert.aspx
City of London Financial Centre Likely to See Most Workers Return After Pandemic
The City of London financial centre, which has resembled a ghost town since the coronavirus swept the world last year, is likely to see most workers return to their offices after the pandemic, the City’s political leader said on the 30th March.
Catherine McGuinness, policy chairwoman at the City of London Corporation, told BBC radio she was confident that trade would return for the cafes, pubs, restaurants and other businesses which rely on the usually teeming crowds of office workers. But there would probably be changes to the way people work as a result of the pandemic.
“What people are telling us is that they are expecting their central office base to remain at the core of their business with people coming in three or four days, working different hours, so we are expecting the bulk of the return,” Ms McGuinness said.
“What it will mean in terms of the overall footfall, we are not yet quite clear.”
London dominates the world’s US$6.6 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, it is the biggest centre for international banking and the second largest fintech hub in the world after the United States.
Ms McGuinness said developers were revving up plans for new buildings in the City, home to the giants of world finance.
“We’re already seeing in our planning applications a real surge of interest in getting office space in the City. I think we have seen)so far this year 80% of all the applications we saw last year,” she said.
“So, continued interest and continued commitment to that office space, but a different way of using it.”
A survey published last week by accountants KPMG showed most major global companies no longer planned to reduce their use of office space after the pandemic, although few expect business to return to normal this year.
Earlier this month New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s CEO told thousands of employees who have been mostly working from home since the start of the pandemic that he hopes to have them working in offices again by this summer.
But Britain’s Nationwide Building Society and Santander UK have scaled back on their office space.
Nationwide told all its 13,000 office-based staff to work from anywhere in the country and said last week it will not renew the leases on three of its offices in its hometown of Swindon in the south-west of England.
Santander UK plans to close four offices in Bootle, Newcastle, London Portman House and Manchester Deansgate and move its headquarters from London to Milton Keynes.
Lloyd’s to seek feedback on future underwriting room plans
Lloyd’s is planning to share an “early vision concept” for the future underwriting room in April after concluding the first phase of its consultation to reshape the trading floor.