Lloyd's Coffee House

Lloyd’s Coffee House was the London establishment opened by Edward Lloyd around 1686 on Tower Street and later Lombard Street, where merchants, shipowners, and underwriters gathered for shipping news and marine insurance. Lloyd supplied reliable intelligence on ships and cargoes, and the underwriters who met there grew into the Society of Lloyd’s, the insurance market still trading as Lloyd’s of London, and into Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. The coffee house is the documented origin of modern marine insurance and ship classification.