LONDON (Bloomberg) Lloyd?s of London, the 300-year-old insurance market, is extending a plan it said is improving its competitiveness against Bermuda and Ireland.

The initiative, devised last year to make it easier and less expensive for insurance underwriters to trade in London, will now roll into 2009, a year after the original end point, Lloyd?s said today on its Web site.

?We have made significant progress over the last year, and the market is in good shape, but we cannot afford to be complacent,? Chief Executive Officer Richard Ward said in the statement. The plan has helped give underwriters better access to markets overseas and enabled some insurers to file claims electronically, Lloyd?s said.

Ward aims to move the market?s paper-based transaction system to an electronic platform, to help prevent insurance business from going to Bermuda and Dublin, which have used computer trading for years and gained market share. Hiscox Plc, Amlin Plc and other insurers that trade on the Lloyd?s market have raised billions of dollars for reinsurance units in Bermuda to take advantage of lower taxes and looser regulation.

The number of underwriting syndicates operating on the Lloyd?s market has declined to 66 from more than 400 in 1980. The average amount of business those syndicates insure has risen to ?239 million from about ?20 million, Lloyd?s said.

The London market?s plans to expand in India have been delayed this year as it studies changes in Indian insurance law, the statement said.

Separately, Equitas Inc., the company set up to protect Lloyd?s from all policies sold before 1993, will pay 50 million pounds ($98.10 million) to former Lloyd?s investors and 29.3 million pounds to its own staff, comprising a one-off bonus and early payment of incentive plans. The agreement is part of a deal to remove potentially damaging asbestos and pollution claims.

About 34,000 people who had been Lloyd?s of London individual investors, or so-called ?names,? will share the first payout on the $7 billion reinsurance agreement with Warren Buffett?s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Equitas said in a letter to investors earlier this week. The payments are dependent on the deal being approved by regulators and the names by March 31.