London insurance brokers ponder moving to Athens

Brussels, Athens and Piraeus are among the cities London insurance brokers could consider for European Union subsidiaries, with time running out to plan for a hard Brexit, a trade body said on Wednesday.

The Lloyd's of London commercial insurance market is setting up an EU subsidiary in Brussels to start writing business from January 2019.

A number of other large insurers such as AIG and Aviva are also setting up EU hubs in centers such as Luxembourg and Dublin, in the event that Britain loses access to the European Union's single market after Brexit. But brokers have generally been slower to set up such units, industry sources say.

"At this advanced stage of the game, it would be foolish to ignore the very real possibility of no deal for the UK," Christopher Croft, chief executive of the London Insurance and International Brokers Association (LIIBA),...