Coleridge to resign early from Lloyd's

David Coleridge, the departing chairman of Lloyd's, is to drop all connections with the ruling body of the insurance market two years earlier than expected.

Lloyd's said yesterday that he was one of five council members working in the market who had decided to resign before their normal retirement dates. This is to help implement a recommendation in a report by Sir Jeremy Morse to streamline the council.

Mr Coleridge is understood to want to leave the council altogether at the year-end so that his successor can have a clear run, and also to put more time into his own business.

Mr Coleridge, who has been under heavy pressures inside and outside the market during his term of office, has backed David Rowland, chairman of the brokers Sedgwick, as the next chairman.

Altogether, 12 working and external council members will be resigning or retiring at the end of the year, including Dr Mary Archer. But to slim the council, only five vacancies will be filled, with nominations now invited. One will be an external member, and the rest will be professionals in the market.

Lloyd's also set out new measures to avoid conflicts of interest on the council and the new market regulation and business development boards, which are to be set up as a result of the Morse proposals. They will cover working and external members.

There will be a new wide-ranging register of business interests for all three bodies. But demands from some of the 'names' who invest in the market to make the register retrospective have been rejected. A resolution put to an extraordinary meeting of members last month - the outcome of which will be known next week - says the register should be backdated to 1982.

External members of the council, who are to be paid pounds 15,000 a year, will be banned from holding any personal appointment with a Lloyd's underwriting agent, broker or holding company.

They will be 'invited' not to practise their profession within the Lloyd's market if it conflicts with their council obligations.

The register will cover Companies Act information such as interests in contracts, details of syndicate participation and all Lloyd's-related remuneration, including profit-related pay and pension benefits.

Nominations for the elections must arrive by 2 October.