John Neal has found his next job, and it's a long way from the Underwriting Room.
The former Lloyd's of London chief executive has been named non-executive chair of LUSYi, an early-stage Exeter software company that wants to stop collisions on blind bends and hidden junctions. The appointment was announced on LinkedIn this week by the company and its founder and chief executive Will Tinney, who said he was humbled to have Neal on board.
It's the first role Neal has taken on publicly since the Council of Lloyd's concluded in July that he had breached the corporation's compliance rules, and almost a year after his planned move to AIG fell apart.
LUSYi's pitch is easy to grasp. Nobody can see round a bend, through a hedgerow or over the brow of a hill, so a driver and a cyclist can be seconds from meeting before either knows the other is there. The company says its software alerts drivers, riders, cyclists and runners to each other's presence before they come into view, running on phones, smartwatches and in-car screens people already own. No cameras, no roadside equipment, no new hardware in the vehicle.
The firm frames this as unfinished business. Aircraft have had automated collision avoidance for decades, ships broadcast their positions to everything nearby, and Britain's railways have used train protection systems that can trigger emergency braking before a driver sees the danger.
Roads, LUSYi argues, are the last mode still relying on human eyesight. Previous attempts stalled because they needed kit fitted to every vehicle, which is impractical when you consider the scale of the UK fleet, and impossible for a horse rider or a jogger. The name, incidentally, stands for "Let Us See You Intelligently."
For now the company is testing the idea on islands, where a closed road network makes it easier to measure results before and after. It says it is working with the governments of the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey, framing those relationships as permission and backing linked to the islands' Vision Zero commitments rather than commercial contracts.
The company is openly courting the insurance market, with a pitch to carriers about what prevention tech could do for their books. The backdrop gives it something to work with. The Department for Transport's final road casualty figures for 2025 show 1,538 people were killed on Britain's roads last year, down 4% on 2024, but the number killed or seriously injured rose 4% to 29,918.
That is the gap the government wants closed. Its road safety strategy, the first in more than a decade, targets a 65% cut in deaths and serious injuries by 2035, with insurers among the parties expected to benefit if it works.
Read next: UK road safety strategy draws mixed response from insurers over young driver measures
There's a personal dimension, too. In March 2022, while still running Lloyd's, Neal was seriously injured when a car hit him while he was out cycling, and he had to step back from the role while he recovered. He hasn't said publicly whether that experience shaped his decision to join LUSYi.
Neal took the top job at Lloyd's in October 2018 and stayed more than six years. His exit was first announced alongside a move to Aon as global CEO of reinsurance and global chairman of climate solutions. That move was then dropped in favour of a role as AIG's president of general insurance, which in turn collapsed in November 2025, with Neal withdrawing two weeks before he was due to start.
Read next: Silence from brokers as Lloyd's reopens investigation into former CEO
Lloyd's opened an expanded investigation that same month. The findings published in July said Neal's relationship with former corporate affairs director Rebekah Clement was close enough to be seen as a perceived conflict of interest, and that neither had disclosed it.
The council found no conclusive evidence of a romantic relationship and no process failings in Clement's promotion. It also found Neal had failed to make sure whistleblowing reports made in November 2023 were properly handled.
Neal said he was pleased the probe found no inappropriate relationship but disputed the rest of the findings. Clement's lawyers have since put Lloyd's on notice of possible legal action.
Read next: Lloyd's of London under scrutiny as governance issues highlight market risks
For LUSYi, incorporated in 2024 and still at seed stage, the attraction is obvious. A former Lloyd's chief executive and QBE group CEO brings decades of contacts across the carriers it wants to sell to. Share allotment filings suggest the company has so far raised sums in the tens of thousands of pounds, so this is very much an early bet.
Whether Neal's recent history helps or hinders that pitch is the open question. Board appointments at small private tech firms don't face the regulatory fit-and-proper scrutiny a top insurance job would, but the insurers LUSYi is courting will have read July's findings closely.
What is clear is that a man who spent his career pricing what happens after a crash has now put his name to a business built on stopping one.
