Investors - or names - in the Lloyds of London market will be interested to note some major changes at the 300-year-old insurance market. They will be heartened to note the record prices being paid for access to Lloyds at the moment, as well as the ending of the three-year accounting practice and may also enjoy a virtual reality Internet guide to the Lime Street building.

The first of this year's capacity auctions got under way this week and is expected to accelerate the trend towards corporate capital taking over from the remaining 6,800 traditional individual backers known as names. The injection of corporate capital will in turn drive further reform in a market which has already undergone a major overhaul since it nearly collapsed under record losses in the mid 1990s.

Auctions held each summer allow names and other investors to sell their rights to back Lloyds' insurance syndicates in the following year and thereby reduce their exposure or quit the market altogether.

On the buy side, auctions allow the managing agencies which run the syndicates to add to the capacity they control on their own syndicates, a trend which is gathering pace as most managing agencies move towards becoming more like conventional insurance companies. This week's is the first of six to be held between now and September.