Insurance Dealer is delighted to learn of the appointment today of Inga Beale who has made history by becoming the first ever female Chief Executive of Lloyds of London. Her appointment doubles the number of women on the board from one to two and has managed to break one of the last male dominated and perceived glass ceilings for females in the insurance industry. Having started her career at the Prudential she climbed through the ranks with insurers including Zurich to become chief executive of the Canopius Group managing agents before her current appointment. Ms Beale, 50, will earn a reported £750,000 plus a sizeable bonus in return for controlling the Lloyds market that brings in over £25.5 billion in premiums. It is reported that she is used to even greater salaries as she earned £2.9 million when turning round Zurich based Converium.

The Lloyds market is a world centre of insurance, made up of a number of Syndicates that insure more common risks such as super tankers and petrochemical sites to the more obscure risks such qs celebrity body parts (an example being Michael Flatley’s legs). The Lloyds market provides an array of low cost and technical policies from cheap empty property insurance, high risk cheap liability insurance for scaffolders and other policies, as selection which are: