PartnerRe profit plunges by more than half in Q3 but ‘poised’ for renewal

Bermuda-based reinsurer  PartnerRe, which is to be acquired by French mutual insurer Covéa, has revealed that its profits plunged by more than half in the third quarter of this year, but insisted that the business is “well-positioned” for the upcoming renewal season.

PartnerRe made a small net profit of $70 million for Q3 2021, compared with $206 million in the same period of 2020. For the first nine months, net profit was $317 million, compared with $2 million seen in the prior year period.

The reinsurer reported gross written premiums of $1.9 billion for Q3 and $6.4 billion for 9M 2021, up from $1.6 billion in Q3 and $5.2 billion in 9M 2020.

Its non-life combined ratio came in at 99.8 percent for Q3 and 95 percent for the 9M 2021, an improvement from the combined ratio of 101.6 percent and 109 percent for Q3 and 9M 2020, respectively.

The results come despite heavy cat losses for the Bermuda reinsurer - $297 million for Q3 and $417 million year to date, including the impacts of Winter Storm Uri, Hurricane Ida and the European floods.

On October 28, Italian investment company Exor entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Covéa for the sale of PartnerRe for a cash consideration of $9 billion.

PartnerRe's president and chief executive officer Jacques Bonneau (pictured) said: “Despite an active quarter for catastrophic activity, we delivered positive operating income during the third quarter of 2021, demonstrating the continued positive financial impacts of our portfolio optimization, especially on the current accident year attritional loss ratio.

“With a profitable underwriting result across all of our segments for the first nine months of 2021 and the strength of our capital and liquidity positions, we are well-positioned for the renewal season. As we look forward to 2022, our strong capital base along with over $1 billion in third-party capital assets under management leaves us poised to remain a valuable, responsive reinsurance partner.”

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