(Bloomberg) Lloyd?s of London, the world?s biggest insurance market, is closing its Kinnect Ltd. electronic insurance business to reduce costs after some insurers failed to support the project.

Lloyd?s ?has agreed not to fund the platform going forward,? Kinnect Interim Chairman Michael Dawson wrote in a letter to the market. ?Support for a centrally built hub was not sufficient to continue the development of Kinnect.?

Kinnect will close in the first quarter and Lloyd?s will attempt to redeploy an unspecified number of employees, said Steve Farrance, a spokesman for Lloyd?s, in a telephone interview. The closure is part of a wider strategic review at Lloyd?s to control costs and prevent rival regions, such as Bermuda, from gaining market share.

Lloyd?s has spent about ?70 million ($125 million) developing Kinnect since 2001 in an effort to modernise underwriting and eliminate the use of paper at the three-century-old insurance market. Former Lloyd?s Chief Executive Nick Prettejohn, who left to become head of Prudential Plc?s U.K. business this month, has said the Lloyd?s market has the highest costs in the insurance industry because of its reliance on paper-based processing.