In an interview with National Underwriter earlier this year, Mr. Riley said he kept his private life private and rigorously avoided being interviewed by U.K. newspapers who wanted to take pictures of his home and know what books he liked to read and where he was educated.

“He was a very private person. He was a reluctant chairman of Lloyds,” said Tim Riddell, managing director of SOC Group, the London-based holding company that owns a Lloyds managing agency and members agency. “He became chairman, not for himself, but because he wanted to see the market reform and thrive.”

“He was very dedicated and wanted to do what was best for Lloyds, but didnt always feel he had to do it with the greatest fanfare,” said a market source.

It was all too apparent when Mr. Riley became chairman in January 2001 that the market was in need of reform when just five months later, the market reported a loss of 1.065 billion for the 1998 year of account. (Lloyds historically has issued its reports and accounts three years in arrears.)

Although the market had undergone a major reconstruction and renewal in 1996, further reforms were obviously needed to correct underwriting practices. In a speech last year, Mr. Riley said the Lloyds brand and reputation “can no longer sustain financial performance which goes from profit to heart-attack every five years.”

So he ushered in a radical program of reformsa major part of which was to make Lloyds into a franchise that licenses Lloyds businesses and monitors their business plans and performance.

“I hope Ive made some mark on Lloyds with the reforms,” said Mr. Riley during the interview.

He emphasized that the true test of the reforms will become apparent when “the market turns in the next two, three or four years and Lloyds makes moneyand does better than its peer group.”

“My main plea to the insurance industry is dont, for the next five years, do something stupid,” he said, explaining the dangers of a return to price competition. Five good years are needed in order to assure “the industry will pull through.” Nobody knows when the next big hit will come and whether theres “enough petrol in the tank to survive it,” he added.

“Well have a couple of good years and then a lot of bad years,” he said, adding that such behavior in the past was propped up by high interest ratesa cushion that no longer exists.

“I think the conditions now are so much different than theyve been, certainly in my experience, even going back to the 1960s. People should be more sensible and circumspect.”

What were the highlights and low points of his career? For highlights, Mr. Riley pointed to his 30-plus years as a broker with Sedgwick, which he chaired when it was sold to Marsh in 1998.

“We were all over the world and did some massive jobs,” he said, stating that “it was a good firm to be with.” He said Sedgwick performed a lot of firsts, including developing nuclear insurance, finding insurance for all the big North Sea drilling rigs as well as the channel tunnel, “a unique construction project.”

The low point of his career came with 9/11, he said. “Theres no doubt that the World Trade Center was an excruciating situation both on the emotional side because [of people in the market who died], and also because we didnt know for a period of time whether we would survive,” Mr. Riley said.

“But the team at Lloyds kept their heads and the market rallied around and they produced. Im quite proud that they did that,” he said, noting that Lloyds demonstrated its resilience, strength and has emerged financially stronger than many of its competitors.

“The worst moment of my life was making a speech when people were killed,” he said, recalling the day when Lloyds marked the tragedy by ringing the Lutine bell. “Thats far, far worse than standing in front of shareholders and being beaten up with questions by analysts. It was a very poignant moment in my life.”

Commenting on his tenure at Lloyds, Mr. Riley said it was two years of intellectual stimulation, to put it mildly. “Converting myself from the chairman of a publicly quoted stock company into trying to run a market was an education process. You either had to grasp the nettle or not.”

Mr. Riley grasped the nettle, but quietly.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 4, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.