Smart trading strategy: the real differentiator in a soft market

The London market is in a softer phase, and softness tests discipline. Higher submission volumes. Flattening premium growth. Tighter margins. In these conditions, underwriting standards are harder to protect just when they matter most.

The recent Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) report, “Lead and Follow in the Lloyd’s and London Market: Beyond the Binary”, challenges the industry’s traditional view of leadership and replaces it with a more nuanced six-segment spectrum.

The report makes a simple but important point: being first on the slip does not automatically make you a true leader.

That distinction becomes critical in a soft market. The report highlights a disconnect between perception and reality.

Survey respondents reported leading 43% of gross written premium (GWP), yet much of that business may in fact sit in what the LMA categorises as Capacity Lead rather than Full-Service Lead.

In parallel, 65% of market participants expect consolidation in the number of lead underwriters over the next five to ten years.

Why? Because leadership carries cost. Investment in underwriting depth, claims expertise, speed of response and operational infrastructure.

In a softer market, those costs are harder to justify unless they translate into genuine differentiation.

This is where smart trading strategy is carving out a competitive edge.

Smart follow GWP has grown from approximately $4bn in 2024 to a projected $5bn in 2025, with credible pathways toward $25bn by 2030.

But the more meaningful shift is structural.

Brokers and insurers are increasingly organising around rules-based participation, algorithmic facilities and structured portfolio solutions. You experience frictionless trading.

Property offers the clearest example. It combines scale, established data standards and intense competition.

More than $100m in smart follow GWP has already been bound through our consortium model behind a recognised market lead.

That growth reflects demand for predictable, disciplined follow capacity that can respond at pace without diluting underwriting standards.

Smart follow is not a platform and it is not automation for its own sake. It is a trading strategy.

It allows insurers to deploy capital behind trusted leads according to predefined appetite and pricing parameters, applying underwriting intent consistently across higher volumes of risk. It also allows for speed, and speed wins, while hesitation costs.

The LMA’s framework shows that leadership is a spectrum. Some will invest to remain or become Full-Service Leads.

Others will choose to operate as efficient portfolio or capacity players. Both are valid commercial strategies.

But in a soft market, the dividing line will not be balance sheet size.

It will be clarity of strategy and the ability to execute it consistently. You do not need to be the biggest balance sheet to lead. You do need to be the smartest.