Insurance bill for Ukraine crisis will run into billions, says Lloyd's of London chief John Neal

The cost to Lloyd’s of London underwriters of the Russian war on Ukraine could be “low single-digit billions”, the chief executive of the insurance market said today as he announced a strong bounceback to profitability.

John Neal said that the claims hit was likely to be “major” but “manageable” with no individual insurance syndicate expected to go bust as a result.

Lloyd’s was scenario-testing insurance lines including aviation, marine, trade credit, cyber and political insurrection. While there was still huge uncertainty, the likely cost would be well within the market’s normal tolerances, it said. “We’re talking about low billions [of dollars], certainly no more,” Neal told The Times.

He said that the overall hit from aviation claims was likely to be considerably less than