Clement Booth Chairman of Allianz UK has told a meeting of senior industry figures the UK has missed out on billions of dollars of capacity in the past three decades as other financial centres have been more competitive in luring underwriters.

Speaking at the Biennial conference staged by the Association of British Insurers in London Mr Booth who was previously a member of the senior management at re/insurance broker Aon said the UK insurance market and in particularly the London market needed to engage with the British government to get a more competitive environment to give companies a reason to base themselves in the country.

He said the market had everything re/insurers may need to base their operations but that financial centres such as Bermuda, Zurich and Ireland had stolen a march on London.

Mr Booth who is also on the German underwriting group’s Board of Management said in the past 20 years the Bermudian market had seen $65 billion of capacity enter the market and with it 10,000 jobs, and this was financial and human capital which could have come to the UK had to sought to create the right environment.

"In the UK we should try to compete for a bit of that," he told delegates which included the Secretary to the UK Treasury.

What was needed was a clearer strategy from the industry’s leaders and the government to create the conditions to compete for new capital and capacity and that included the taxation system, alongside a stable legal framework and a level of regulation which did not impact on the ability to price risks