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The Lloyd's building is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London, a British insurance market. It serves as a meeting place where multiple financial backers or "members", whether individuals (traditionally known as "Names") or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk. Unlike most of its competitors in the reinsurance market, it is neither a company nor a corporation.

Named after Edward Lloyd who founded a coffee shop on the site in 1688, it was designed by architect Richard Rogers and built over eight years from 1978 to 1986. Like the Pompidou Centre, the building was innovative in having its services such as staircases, lifts, electrical power conduits and water pipes on the outside, leaving a clean uncluttered space inside. The 12 glass lifts were the first of their kind in the UK. The building consists of 3 main towers and 3 service towers around a central, rectangular space. Its focal point is the gigantic Underwriting Room on the ground floor, which houses the famous Lutine Bell. The Underwriting Room (often simply known as 'the Room') is overlooked by galleries, forming a 60-metre (200-foot)-high atrium lit naturally through a huge barrel-vaulted glass roof. The first four galleries open onto the atrium space, and are connected by escalators through the middle of the structure. The higher floors are glassed-in, and can only be reached via the outside lifts. The 11th floor houses the Committee Room, an 18th century dining-room originally designed for the 2nd Earl of Shelburne by Robert Adam in 1763: it was transferred piece-by-piece from the previous (1958) Lloyd's building across the road. The Lloyd's building height is approximately 76 meters (250 feet), and features 14 floors. Each floor can rapidly and easily be altered with the addition or removal of partitions and walls.

The first (1928) Lloyd's building was demolished to make way for the present one. However, its main entrance at 12 Leadenhall Street (pictured here) was preserved, and forms a rather incongruous attachment to the 1986 structure.

I have only had health insurance for one year of my adult life (22 to 23) and I never used it. This is a fact that surely keeps my mother awake late at night. The cover story of New York magazine last week was about the young and uninsured. The feature illuminated how the cleverly named "young invincibles" get through their twenties "relatively unscathed and 'choose' to live without insurance." They (we) rely on things like yoga, vitamins and the grace of god.

New York offers a few free and low cost options to its insurance-less gamblers. It's not the highest quality service, but beggars are not, in fact, choosers. And, I tell ya, nothing equalizes the population like spending the morning in the waiting room of the free clinic. I decided it would be kind of responsible of me to get a quick check-up before I leave the country for a few months.

*Knocking on wood as I write this.*Since I started living healthier, I almost never get sick. I pay attention to my body and hope for the best. It may not be the smartest way to live, but I am a bit of a danger junkie.

Oh, and in case you wanted to know, everything is clean and shiny. Even my hiny.