First of all, ALL the wiring, heating, cooling, and cabling are OUTSIDE the main structure. The insides are business ONLY. (you step "outside" the building to go to the bathroom).
Some guy at a desk says "I have 500 million dollars of risk on some condos here in Myrtle Beach SC, revenue from the policies at x amount of dollars, loss ration 82.4% for last three years..." and some giant consortium of Arabs, or some big financial somebody says "I will take that!" and you have someone "buying" the cash by assuming the risk and the deal is done! It is very heady.
As an aside, there are about 11 big conglomerates who "underwrite" the big big big risks at Lloyds. These are the people who stand BEHIND the Travelers, and the Hartfords, and the Chubbs, and all. Eight of those were functionally bankrupt after 9/11, in that they did not have the cash reserves mandated to continue to underwrite business. We don't know how close the entire world insurance market came to collapsing. There was an agreement to allow these guys to continue to function with reduced margin requirements, in the hopes that they could build up equity and continue to function, so as not to roil the mkts more than they already were.
It is really pretty interesting to look into.
I've never been there, but had to insure $200Million worth of drilling iron --- talked to some guy with a Scottish accent -- knew all about me, the rigs.
Gave me a price that was reasonable (cheaper than an "admitted" carrier) with none of the B.S. "Downhole tool" and other exceptions.
And we did business.
Took about 10 minutes, two phone calls, and some faxes.
And big checks, mind you.