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Acturis attracts two more

29 August 2001

By Diane Smyth

Brokers Layton Blackham and The Beckett Group have got on board Acturis, the online trading platform already supported by Smart and Cook, and Bland Bankart.

Aimed at commercial brokers, Acturis provides brokers with a back office system and the ability to trade with insurers online. Layton Blackham and The Beckett Group join the existing brokers in helping to develop the system, which Acturis hopes will ensure it meets brokers' needs. The system will not be made available to brokers until the first half of 2002.

Acturis is headed up by chairman Sir Brian Pitman, former chairman of Lloyds TSB, and co-chief executive officers Theo Duchen and David McDonald.

Mr Duchen and Mr McDonald are two ex-McKinsey partners, who co-led the company's UK insurance and e-commerce practices, respectively.

Mr Duchen said; "We have always said we would increase the number of brokers working with us by a small amount. It is very useful to work with a number of brokers as each one has a different way of approaching things. We are learning all the time".

He continued: "We are getting a lot of interest and enthusiasm, people are keen to work with us. We will not announce anything until early next year, however, other people have been constricted by announcing a date then not being ready for it and we will not fall into that trap. We will announce a day when we are confident we can hit it".

Chris Blackham, managing director of Layton Blackham, said: "We keep looking at all the systems and we think this one has the potential to develop into a really effective system. We think the opportunities presented by combining Acturis' management experience and software with input from some of the UK's larger provincial brokers mean it might just be the future".

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