SCOR aims to break into US top five reinsurers

SCOR remains upbeat on its growth prospects in the US market where it remains underweight compared with other parts of the world. It believes it will break into the top flight of US reinsurers—but it not going to rush to achieve this.

That is according to John Jenkins, CEO of P&C reinsurance operations–the Americas at SCOR, who told APCIA that it must be patient.

“SCOR remains underweight in the US, compared to other parts of the world, where we are the number three or four reinsurer,” Jenkins said.

“In the US we are more in the top eight to 10 range. The ambition long term is to get ourselves in the US to the same position that we are in the rest of the world—in the top four or five.”

While there is a significant amount of headroom for the company in the US, Jenkins accepts it might be a number of years before it gets to where it wants to be. It is a long-term goal, he stresses, the timeline of which will partly be dictated by market forces.

“We know what the goal is. If we can get there earlier than we had thought as the market continues to improve, or if we need to be more patient, we will do that. As long as we are making progress, we will be happy with where we are.”

Jenkins stressed that, instead of targeting specific lines of business or states, in the US SCOR has a client-focused strategy. It picks clients it wants to work with based on the quality of their underwriting and their potential to be good long-term strategic partners.

This is a long-term strategy that fits the SCOR business model in all markets. It offers clients a full array of products and builds relationships, increasing its share with them over time and across all lines of business.

Looking at the current state of the market, Jenkins said, SCOR is optimistic. “We like the trend of what we are seeing in terms of rates and movements there. We’re seeing a lot of companies pull back capacity and there’s some stricter underwriting going on. People are looking beyond just rates.

“We don’t call this a hard market by any means. We like what’s happening, but we hope that there’s another set of rate increases to get us to where we need to be.

“It’s a good start—things are pointing in the right direction. But we need to see more before we can call it a good market,” he concluded.