Sexism shame engulfs Lloyd’s of London

Shocking report reveals 500 staff have encountered sexual harassment in the historic insurance market at the heart of the City

A DEVASTATING report has laid bare the scale of sexual harassment at Lloyd’s of London as bosses try to overhaul its male-dominated culture.

The review by the firm, one of the City’s grandest institutions, found that 500 complaints of sexual harassment had been made at the famous insurance market in the past year. This amounted to one in 12 workers.

The survey of 6,000 people also found half were nervous about blowing the whistle on harassment, while 41pc said they were not taken seriously when they did.

John Neal, the chief executive, admitted the findings were ‘shocking’ and ‘pretty ugly’. The 54-year-old has vowed to overhaul the company’s culture and announced a new panel chaired by Fiona Luck, a Lloyd’s nonexecutive director, to scrutinise the response to the scandal.

Last night MPs and campaigners described the survey findings as ‘deeply worrying’. It came just days after Lloyd’s lost its third senior female executive in just two years, with the departure of HR boss Annette Andrews.

It launched the harassment review after an investigation by Bloomberg six months ago revealed that women working in the company’s marketplace had complained of being abused and attacked by male bosses.

This claimed women at Lloyd’s were referred to as ‘totty’ by staff, with secretaries chosen based on their looks. One woman was said to have been attacked by a drunk senior manager in a pub, but employers persuaded her to drop the complaint.

Another who was allegedly grabbed in a taxi by her boss was moved to a new department after complaining – while he kept his job.

Lloyd’s appointed its first female and openly bisexual boss, Dame Inga Beale (pictured) five years ago to try to solve the problem.

But she faced a barrage of abuse, with one anonymous letter calling for her to ‘go and die’, and left last year amid reports that other board members felt she had devoted too much time to diversity issues.

Under Beale, Lloyd’s also banned drinking in working hours but the survey showed the culture is still alive and well, with 24pc of respondents saying that they’d witnessed ‘excessive’ alcohol consumption.

Current chief executive Neal, who took over last October, said: ‘The results are shocking, unacceptable and require robust action immediately. I expected disappointing results on sexual harassment and excessive alcohol consumption, but the stats and levels of complaint are higher than I would have imagined. We’ve been pretty clear that we will take action in the event that an individual or organisation was not behaving to the standards we expect.’ Labour’s Anneliese Dodds, a shadow Treasury minister, said: ‘The findings around harassment and drunken behaviour are deeply worrying.

‘I hope that this evidence will now accelerate the strong action necessary so that in the future, no woman has to endure what many working in Lloyd’s have had to put up with.’

Lloyd’s was founded 333 years ago and handles insurance for businesses all over the world. Policies are bought and sold on its trading floors by independent brokers, traders and wealthy individuals. Much of the bad behaviour was reportedly carried out by people who work there but are not actually Lloyd’s staff.