Data reveals average response time for firm order was 2.3 days in 2025
Analysis possible by class of business, organisation, and position on slip
Placing Platform Limited (PPL) has announced the launch of Service Benchmarks, a new market intelligence offering that tracks service delivery against a market benchmark. The tool provides unique insight to carriers on their own response time for firm orders and endorsements, contextualised against the market average.
The development of the product has been supported by a group of early-adopter market firms, including AXA XL.
The insight, accessible via an interactive dashboard, allows carriers to compare their own service performance against the market average, and understand the level of responsiveness required to achieve top quartile performance. Carriers can also drill down into the results to analyse performance by class of business, teams and even individual team members.
In a market where brokers increasingly expect rapid responses and transparency, service performance has become a key differentiator for carriers. The dashboard is designed for management teams seeking objective measures of service performance.
Aggregated analysis of response time data on the platform during 2025 highlighted target areas where carriers can enhance their service delivery:
- The overall average for firm order response time was 2.3 days, a slight reduction on 2024 performance (2.0 days). Carriers in the top quartile in 2025 responded on average in 1.2 days.
- Overall response times on endorsements were nearly twice as long, driven by Follow markets being c.70% slower than their Lead counterparts.
- Response times for firm orders and endorsements on marine, contingency and political risks were consistently quicker than the market average, whereas for casualty and engineering risks, responses were typically slower.
Colin O’Malley, PPL Chief Operating Officer, said:
“For years, service performance has been recognised as an important differentiator in the London Market, but firms have lacked a consistent and objective way of measuring themselves against their peers.
Service Benchmarks changes that. Leveraging the scale of transactional data flowing through the PPL platform, we can provide carriers with an independent market benchmark that helps them understand how they are performing and where there may be opportunities to improve.
This is about more than reporting metrics. Greater transparency and better insight have the potential to support the drive for high service standards across the market and support more informed, data-driven decision making.
We believe this product and broader Service Benchmarks driven from transactional activity on the PPL platform have the potential to grow into a definitive measure of service performance for the specialty insurance market.”
Chris Read, Chief Operating Officer, UK & Lloyd’s at AXA XL, said:
“At AXA XL, we are committed to delivering outstanding service to our brokers and customers. PPL’s Underwriter Response dashboard provides us with a level of management and service information that will support our ongoing commitment to operational and service excellence.
We have worked closely with PPL throughout the design and delivery of this tool, and our contributions have helped to shape it to deliver the best value to the market. This data gives us the insight we need to raise the bar for good customer service across the board.”
Ends
Notes to Editors
Methodology
PPL, the predominant placing platform in the London Market, can leverage its unique position of placing c.200k risks p.a. for 400 market firms. This breadth of transaction data provides the foundation for a meaningful market benchmark.
Underwriter response times are derived by calculating the difference in weekdays between the receipt of the broker message and the first valid response. A carrier can only see their firm’s data and performance vs the benchmark, with all market data being fully anonymised.
Media contact
Callum Starling | Omnia Partners
Callum.Starling@weareomniapartners.com | 07833 072883