An Austrian-born chemical engineer who made his main career in the oil industry, Doll-Steinberg was a formidable campaigner as chairman of the Gooda Walker and Wellington action groups of some 2,500 “names”. These were individual members of Lloyd’s who were exposed to unlimited liability for the losses of the underwriting syndicates to which they belonged — and which had in many cases been negligently or dishonestly managed during a period in which the market as a whole lost some £6 billion on disasters such as the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion in 1988, Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and claims connected with asbestosis.
Gooda Walker and Wellington were among the worst-hit syndicates, with many of their members facing personal bankruptcy.
As spokesman for these groups, Doll-Steinberg relentlessly harried the grandees of Lloyd’s who tried to play down the extent of the market’s problems, and the laxity of its self-regulation. Mercurial in temperament, he was particularly incensed by the pass-the-parcel “spiral” in which risks had been repeatedly reinsured, with brokers taking a turn on the way past and insiders keeping the best business for themselves while foisting the worst on to syndicates of unsuspecting external “names”.
Doll Steinberg spoke of “a sea-change” in the morality of the market, whose ancient principle of uberrima fides (utmost good faith) seemed to have been “replaced by the principle of caveat emptor, as if you were buying a used car from Arthur Daley”.
He stood unsuccessfully for election to the committee of Lloyd’s, and found himself at odds with moderate “names” who felt more might be achieved by negotiation than by confrontation. But he was highly effective in putting his case to MPs — thereby ensuring a public roasting for the chairman of Lloyd’s when he appeared before a House of Commons committee.
A £900 million settlement was in due course offered by Lloyd’s in response to political pressure and legal action by the numerous “names” groups.
Doll-Steinberg’s role ended in controversy long before then, however, after he and fellow Gooda Walker action group leaders sought preferential terms for themselves in recognition of their efforts on behalf of the wider group. The proposal was rejected, and he stood down as chairman in February 1992 — though he continued to campaign for Lloyd’s reform in a stream of trenchant letters to the national press.
Alfred Doll-Steinberg was born on September 20 1933 in Vienna, where his father Marcus was a civil servant until Austrian Nazis dismissed all Jews from government jobs. The family arrived in England in 1938 and settled in Nottingham. Marcus was interned on the Isle of Wight for the duration of the war, and Alfred was later evacuated to the grounds of Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire.
Alfred’s gifts for mathematics and chemistry won him a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took a double First. He went on to make a career in the design of oil refineries and petrochemical plants, working for oil companies in London and New York, for the Institut Français du Petrole in Paris, and later for his own consultancy firm. His projects included a refinery at Larnaca, Cyprus, and drillings in the Negev desert in Israel.
He was a director of several private companies, including British Tours, a bespoke travel business which he co-founded in 1958. Latterly he was chairman of Tribeka, which develops technology enabling retailers to manufacture and sell digital entertainment products “on demand”.
In 1988 he founded a scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, the James Arthur Ramsay Prize .
He is survived by his wife, Gerda, whom he married in 1965, and their two sons and a daughter.
Alfred Doll-Steinberg, born September 20 1933, died May 9 2012
