174 ALL AFLOAT 



facts : that ' Al at Lloyd's ' is an expression 

 accepted all the world over as a guarantee of 

 prime efficiency, that nearly every shipping 

 country in the world has its own imitation of 

 Lloyd's, nearly always including the name of 

 Lloyd, and that the original Lloyd's at the Royal 

 Exchange in London is still unassailably first. 

 Most people know that Lloyd's originated 

 from the marine underwriters who used to 

 meet for both business and entertainment at 

 Lloyd's coffee-house in the seventeenth century. 

 But comparatively few seem to know that 

 Lloyd's, like most of its imitators, is not a 

 gigantic insurance company, but an association 

 of carefully selected members, who agree to 

 carry on their completely independent business 

 affairs in daily touch with each other. Lloyd's' 

 method differs from that of ordinary insurance 

 in being conducted by ' underwriters,' each one 

 of whom can write his name under any given 

 risk for any reasonable part of the whole. 

 Thus, instead of insuring a million with a 

 company or a single man, the owner lays his 

 case before Lloyd's, whereupon any members 

 who choose to do so can sign for whatever 

 proportion they intend to assume. In this 

 way individual losses are spread among a 

 considerable number of underwriters. Long 



