Liberty Specialty Markets' Virtual Rooms project wins innovation award

Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM), part of Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, has won a Financial Services Forum innovation award for its Liberty Virtual Rooms initiative.

The virtual rooms project, launched as a response to the reduction in face-to-face meetings due to Covid-19, won Best Innovation in Distribution at the awards ceremony, having been hailed by the judges as ‘the standout winner’ in the category. Elaborating on their decision, the judges said that Liberty Virtual Rooms was ‘clearly hugely valuable to the business through lockdown’ and was ‘a strong tool…with benefits for consumers, enabling them to continue delivering their service’.

Carol Baker, Head of Customer Proposition at Liberty Specialty Markets and one of the Virtual Rooms’ developers, said: “It’s wonderful that the Financial Services Forum has recognised the hugely positive impact of Liberty Virtual Rooms. Our aim in launching the initiative was to meet brokers’ needs during the difficult circumstances of the pandemic and enable trading to continue in as normal a way as possible online.

“The market is moving quickly to adapt to digitalisation, and it was important not just to enable conversations to continue, but also trading, including quoting and binding transactions on whatever London Market platform brokers needed.  Making our underwriting teams available to brokers virtually is one step in our commitment to continue to do business in a changing environment.”

The Liberty Virtual Rooms platform was developed in response to the reduction in face-to-face meetings between LSM staff and brokers because of lockdown. The web-based platform enables brokers to meet online with LSM business development, underwriting, claims and risk engineering teams and to trade electronically. It provides one-touch access via an SMS containing a link to the virtual meeting. An LSM concierge is available on the platform to assist with booking queries.

Since its launch in October 2020, Liberty Virtual Rooms has now hosted over 7,000 meetings.

For further information please contact:

Luther Pendragon
Adrian Beeby
020 7618 9100 / 07879 403 564
adrianbeeby@luther.co.uk

Liberty Specialty Markets
Lorna Wiltshire
07483 073 244
lorna.wiltshire@libertyglobalgroup.com