The chief information officer was once viewed largely as a back-office role within the Lloyd’s market. Today, as underwriting, broker relationships and operational resilience become increasingly data-driven, the CIO is moving closer to the centre of business strategy.
For Neil Bayles (pictured), chief information officer at AEGIS London, that shift reflects how deeply technology is now embedded in the insurance operating model.
“Across all businesses, and particularly in the Lloyd’s market, strategies are much more technology-dependent than they have been in the past,” Bayles said. “That’s why the CIO role is becoming more critical, partly to define strategy from a technology standpoint, and also to ensure the investments we make in technology are aligned to business objectives.”
AEGIS London has invested significantly in its technology capabilities in recent years. The focus now is ensuring those investments translate into tangible improvements in underwriting performance, claims service and operational resilience.
“The tools and insights we create underpin where we’re trying to get to,” Bayles said. “It’s not the old way of looking at technology as a necessary evil.”
The London market itself is also becoming more agile and competitive in its use of digital capability.
“You almost have to be able to move quickly, adopt new ways of working and implement solutions to gain business,” he said. “You’re seeing the market become more competitive in a technology sense.”
In the London market, technology is playing a growing role in how underwriting decisions are made and how brokers choose which markets to work with.
For CIOs, that means responsibility now extends well beyond core systems management. The role increasingly centres on building data and technology capabilities that directly support underwriting insight and operational efficiency.
“A CIO has to lead the roadmap for enhancing technology and data capabilities, with data being a key part of an insurer’s toolkit,” Bayles said.
Yet building those capabilities is only part of the challenge. Across the market, insurers must also ensure their underwriting and operational teams actively use the tools being developed.
“There have definitely been cases where technology for its own sake didn’t live up to its investment,” Bayles said. “A key part of the CIO role is getting my team to work with the wider teams so they adopt the tools and technologies and become experts in them.”
In practice, this often means enabling business teams to develop their own technological fluency within their specific roles.
“We talk a lot about ‘shadow IT’, but the reality is we want the business to be technologists in their own space,” he said. “Our job is to provide the tools and enable them to use them effectively.”
“Brokers want us to be easy to work with,” Bayles said. “Underwriters still have to work out pricing and all those aspects, but as an organisation we need to be reliable, efficient and easy to deal with.”
That expectation is increasingly shaped by technology. From data connectivity to digital trading capabilities, insurers are under pressure to make it simpler for brokers to transact and place business efficiently.
In many cases, that also requires collaboration between technology leaders across firms to ensure systems can integrate and support trading relationships.
Technology integration, from data connectivity to digital trading solutions, often plays a direct role in enabling those relationships.
As Lloyd’s continues its market-wide transformation through Blueprint Two, Bayles believes CIOs must remain focused on tangible outcomes rather than broad transformation narratives.
While some initiatives require the market to move collectively, many improvements occur within individual trading relationships and operational partnerships.
“That shouldn’t be seen as something separate from modernisation – it is modernisation,” Bayles said.
Collaboration across the market remains essential if the broader programme is to maintain momentum.
“We have to participate in the broader market modernisation and work together as a network,” he said. “That helps ensure the work focuses on the right things and that we keep up with the pace.”
For Bayles, the ultimate aim is not simply upgrading infrastructure but strengthening how the market operates and makes decisions.
Balancing innovation with the governance and regulatory expectations of the Lloyd’s market is often framed as a constraint. Bayles believes the opposite can be true.
“If you really understand the guardrails, what the policies and governance are trying to achieve, it actually helps you innovate more because you know where the boundaries are,” he said. “A mature control environment actually allows you to take more risk.”
That perspective also shapes how he approaches experimentation. Innovation initiatives should be tied to clear objectives rather than pursued simply for their own sake.
“When you add together many micro-initiatives, they can have a greater impact for much lower effort and risk,” he said. “People often call that ‘small-i’ innovation.”
As technology becomes more central to insurance strategy, CIOs increasingly operate alongside other executives responsible for business outcomes.
That visibility helps ensure technology investment decisions are understood across the leadership team and aligned with broader business priorities.
“There is always more work to do than we have resources and budget for,” he said. “Having clarity at that level supports better decision-making.”
Within technology teams themselves, connecting their work more directly to the business can create a stronger sense of purpose.
“I always say I’m a technologist with an insurance problem,” Bayles said. “You’re a technologist by trade, but we’re part of an insurance business, and that’s what you should be proud of.”
As the Lloyd’s market continues its digital evolution, Bayles believes the CIO’s influence will only grow, not simply supporting the business, but helping define how insurers compete.
