London Bridge 2 pipeline remains healthy: Lloyd’s Deputy CFO Cliff
Highlighting achievements from 2024 when $1.92 billion of capital was deployed through the Lloyd’s insurance-linked securities (ILS) structure, Deputy CFO Alexandra Cliff said today that the pipeline for the London Bridge platform remains healthy.
2024 saw the London Bridge 2 PCC gaining significant traction, as 19 individual cells were established within the structure to support third-party capitalised reinsurance and risk transfer funding arrangements for Lloyd’s market participants.
While those arrangements resulted in US $1.9 billion of capital deployed through London Bridge 2, Cliff also highlighted the larger figure of $2.5 billion of capital committed to the structure last year, which we had reported before.
Cliff, who is taking over the CFO role at Lloyd’s in May, when incumbent Burkhard Keese steps back from that role (he is set to remain a strategic advisor focused on further-developing the risk transfer vehicle London Bridge 2) also highlighted one of the achievements for the Lloyd’s ILS structure in 2025 so far during a media call today.
“London Bridge 2 is accepted by our investors as an innovative, flexible and highly efficient vehicle for accessing the Lloyd’s market,” Cliff explained.
Since 2024, Cliff said, “We’ve issued one cat bond, the Flood Re Vision 2039 bond, which closed this week.”
The £140 million London Bridge 2 PCC Limited (Vision 2039 – 2025-1) is the first catastrophe bond for UK flood reinsurance pool Flood Re, its first time tapping the capital market in this way to support its retrocession program.
As we also highlighted in our article on that deal completing earlier this week, Vision 2039 marks the first use of the London Bridge 2 vehicle for an insurance-linked securities (ILS) arrangement by a non-Lloyd’s entity.
That’s an important step, as it shows how Lloyd’s can facilitate access to the capital markets for reinsurance for more than just its own syndicates and members, which could be a further source of activity for London Bridge 2 in the future.
London Bridge 2 PCC was used for one catastrophe bond issuance in each of 2023 and 2024, both sponsored by market participant Beazley, the $100 million London Bridge 2 PCC Limited (Fuchsia 2023-1) and the $200 million London Bridge 2 PCC Limited (Fuchsia 2 – 2024-1) transactions.
In 2025, we now have the already completed £140 million Vision 2039 cat bond, but also a second deal that is still being marketed for re/insurer Brit, the currently $100 million London Bridge 2 PCC Limited (Lapis 2025-1) transaction.
Additional London Bridge 2 activity can also be expected now that eight Lloyd’s managing agents are already utilising the structure as a mechanism for sourcing third-party reinsurance capital to support syndicates and members in the market.
The catastrophe bond activity is also likely to build and already 2025 is set to see the most catastrophe bonds from London Bridge of any year so far, as we showed above.
Commenting on the outlook for the Lloyd’s market’s London Bridge 2 ILS structure, Deputy CFO Cliff said, “Our pipeline remains healthy.”
Burkhard Keese later highlighted London Bridge 2 as the number one achievement he has been proud of during his time working at Lloyd’s, saying it was “really needed for London as a whole.”
