LIIBA life episode 4 – end of summer

It was nice whilst it lasted for the whole three days, but the early autumn torrential rain seems to have returned with a vengeance today.

Naycation

I won’t lie, I thought we could get some fairly straight forward content by reprising last time’s guide to countries on the green list, examining the newly promoted.  Unfortunately, green list growth after yesterday’s announcement is net -1.  In that it is -1.  We send 20,000 football fans to Portugal, they put up with them gracefully despite several outbreaks of mindless behaviour and we reward that with an attempt to ruin their tourism industry by moving them to the amber list.  Nice.

Anyway, I refused to be foiled.  So welcome to part two of our handy cut out and keep guides.  This time entitled “Why you wouldn’t want to go to the countries now on the red list anyway”

Let us start off with a couple of gentle half volleys.

Sudan.  These are not pirates in the arrrgh, shiver mi timbers, Captain Pugwash styleee.

Afghanistan.  IED.QED

Then it gets a bot more of a test.

Sri Lanka.  Too much tea

Bahrain.  My dad went to Bahrain on one of the Concorde test flights in the 70s.  And I don’t recall (at the age of -15 obvs) him making much of a fuss about it.  So I am filing under “a bit meh”.  Full disclosure: I have no firm evidence that he ever left the airport.  Nor, indeed, got off the plane.

Trinidad & Tobago.  I know.  You are sitting there with the rain hammering down on your roof.  The idea of long palm fringed sandy beaches and clear blue water as the sun beats down from on high has a certain appeal.  But never forget that this is the home of Brian Charles Lara.  A man who has been known to commit the ultimate sin of talking about himself in the third person.  And a man who humiliated our plucky boys not once, but twice in plundering world records.  We must resist.

Egypt.  Oh crikey.  Pyramids, Sphinx, Death on the Nile.  But I fear that indulging in a trip to these wonders of the world would somehow reward the cultural appropriation of the Bangles and is thus fundamentally #notok.

Costa Rica.  I confess to quite enjoying the fact that the only country in Central America that I have not been to is the only one with a proper tourist industry.  Plus it would bring back terrible memories of them emerging top from the Group of Perfectly Healthy Long Life in 2014.

So, there you go, avoid them all like the plague.

You can’t STEM the tide

Thank you to those of you who participated in our webinar on Tuesday launching our STEM training week in August.  This promises to be a tremendous initiative that will really make a difference to all of our efforts to develop a more inclusive market.  Huge thanks also to those of you who have subsequently volunteered to take part in the week by taking on one of the expert or coaching roles.

If anybody out there missed the webinar, the recording is available on our website – at our rapidly expanding diversity and inclusion resource hub.  I strongly recommend it.  It was an excellent session.  And if you would like to know more about volunteering for the training week – or would like to get involved with other diversity and inclusion initiatives that we are planning to take forward, please do get in touch.  The only criteria required are enthusiasm and a desire to get things done.  Contact us at belonging@liiba.co.uk to be a part of it.

And, on the same theme, there is still time to register for Monday’s webinar on the market leading Digital Minds programme.  Do join us if you can.

Jack from the wilderness

She has been on holiday but has returned to haunt us with some quite professional genuine insurance content.  Here goes.

  • Delegated Authority
    • Delegated Contract Manager (DCM) is due to go live on Monday 28th June. Prior to this, access to BAR will be restricted for a period of 2 weeks to allow for the migration of data from BAR to DCM (you’ve got off lightly, after all the government restricted access to bars for about 7 months). We have been advised that brokers will be able to access BAR on a read only basis during this time but that once migration has occurred, any review of BAR data will need to be via service requests.
    • The rescheduled broker demonstration of DCM will now be taking place on Thursday 10th June (to mark the 1,698th anniversary of the death of Alexander the Great) from 11.30am to 12.30pm. We would encourage brokers working with DA business to attend if they have not already attended a demonstration. Please contact DAchangesupport@lloyds.com if not already registered.
    • The DA Programme will be running an event for senior managers on Tuesday 15th June (details attached to the email that you got with the link to this page – this is so complicated) Again, we would recommend those in senior position who need to plan resources for the next 18 months attend to understand the roadmap of change under the programme. This also presents the opportunity to ask questions directly of the DA Programme manager.

 

  • Claims
    • LIIBA’s COLG and DACC groups continue to liaise with the Future at Lloyd’s claims workstreams on deliverables for 2021 and will be holding a forum for LIIBA members on 21st June (Freedom Day! Or not…) to provide updates. An invite for this event is being sent out today

 

This Lat in

It has been a while since we have covered developments in everybody’s favourite part of the world (well, ok, mine) – Latin America.  And now is a very good time to redress this balance with a quick tour de table (as Nic BIPAR would call it).  This is as opposed to a Tour d’Horizon as Nic WFII likes to have (I have to confess something, it is the same Nic), which, so memorably during the Australian presidency, became a “tur doe ree zone”.  Which I think is a song out of the Sound of Music.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand.  And you can see how it happened.  After all, Bielsa was their coach and there was all that hiding-in-the-bushes-watching-Derby stuff.  So, of course, they would have thought spying in training ran in Argentinian blood.  So what else to think when you see a drone near your ground than that it is the dastardly opposition trying to get a leg up before your World Cup qualifier?  And what else to do but send up your own drone to take theirs out in a kamikaze attack?  Who would have believed such an obviously made up story like it was a drone belonging to the local energy company that was being used to fix the street lights?  It just makes no sense.  It’s a Chile incident.  But, still, at least the people of Hartlepool don’t need to feel quite as silly anymore.

Elsewhere, it is a big year for elections in Latin America this year.  And it is a big year for totally unreadable races.  Chile itself will elect a new President in the autumn from a current field of about 500 prospective candidates.  And on Sunday, Peru holds the second round run-off between two candidates who emerged from a first round which featured 18 candidates and progressed by getting about 19% and 13% of the vote respectively.

And what a choice.  If you thought Johnson or Corbyn was bad (yes, I mean you Dom) then this is a whole new level.  On the one hand you have the daughter of a former President imprisoned for corruption, pardoned and then imprisoned again who herself has been to prison three times and is alleged to have taken $3.6m in cash from the President of the National Bank to help fund one of her two previous failed attempts to win office.  And on the other hand you have Jeremy Corbyn – in the guise of Pedro Castillo.  Although different silly hat, tbf.  I’d sell those Antofagasta and Rio Tinto shares while you can.

Further north and a return of friend of the column Daniel Ortega.  Now you know you have been in politics a long time when you are faced with the prospect of running for “re-election” against the daughter of the woman who inflicted your only “defeat” 31 years ago.  But that was what was facing Danny O.  And those are not the sorts of odds he likes.  So, the solution was simple.  Firstly, you get the National Assembly which you dominate to pass a law forbidding “traitors to Nicaragua” from running for office.  Then you get state prosecutors who you control to arrest Ms Chamorro (a political dynasty that makes the Kennedys look like amateurs) on charges of money laundering to the detriment of the Nicaraguan state and society (which, presumably, constitutes being a “traitor”) and, probably far more seriously in Daniel’s eyes, the glorious concept of “ideological falsehood”.  Because, you know, that is what Daniel is here for, so don’t tread on his patch.

Would it surprise you to learn that my lucky pound is not on an opposition victory this time round?  Unless defeat were somehow to become a convenience for Daniel.  In which case, pile in.

That’s it.  I am off to the right back shop with Gareth Southgate.