Friday, January 25th (this was written by Leanne and Jeff)

On Friday, We (Jeff and Leanne) had a much different adventure than many of our classmates. Jeff had an interview and a tour with a Reinsurance company in London. We ventured to London and took the Central line to the Aldgate station where we were greeted by Mr. Vince Rossi, a broker for Arthur J. Gallagher. We first took a small tour and visited with members of the Gallagher office, but soon after Mr. Rossi decided to take us to Lloyd's of London. Lloyd's is an interesting building because it houses many underwriters that write insurance risks for other brokers. Essentially, Lloyd's is the stock market of insurance. Lloyd's is not a company itself, but house many desks/cubicules/sections in which other insurance companies (Catlin, AIG Europe, etc..) place underwriters. This is unique because it is a method of business that is still very personal and face to face, in which many other places in the world do this method of business electronically. After witnessing a transaction between a Mr. Rossi and an underwrite, our tour of Lloyd's had concluded. Not to soon after we met with a Reinsurance broker of Arthur J. Gallagher, Danny Driscoll. Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Rossi took us out to lunch where many different conversations took place (from Insurance/Reinsurance information to some awful trips and flights that they had been on). After our long lunch, Mr. Rossi parted with us to go back to work, and Mr. Driscoll decided enough with insurance talks, and showed us around London. We ventured to St. Paul's, the Bank of England, and other sections of the City of London. This was a lot of fun and made for a full day. Needless to say both of our feet hurt badly because Leanne was in high heels and I was in dress shoes, so all the walking was quite painful but well worth it. We soon later departed from London to go back to Oxford for a farewell dinner at St. Claires. The dinner was very enjoyable and it was the first time we both became saddened that our trip would soon be coming to an end. To end the night we decided to go to a pub one last time and say goodbye to Oxford in proper fashion. Cheers!

Written by: Jeff Parrish and Leanne Brinson