SCOR reports 6.6% pricing increase at April 2020 renewal

Global reinsurer SCOR grew its property and casualty (P&C) gross written premiums by 5.7 percent at constant exchange rates at the April 2020 renewals to €504 million.

The reinsurer said it benefited from the broadly improving market conditions evidenced by a 6.6 percent overall increase in pricing.

Asia-Pacific represented 57 percent of the portfolio up for renewal, with two key markets renewing - Japan and India.

In Japan, SCOR Global P&C generated a 5.4 percent growth, having secured price increases and profitable cessions, while partially redeploying its capacity from lower to higher layers following two years characterized by major cat impacts.

"The Japanese market demonstrated its long-term approach to reinsurance buying, and commitment to balanced partnerships with their reinsurers, enabling a significant payback of the 2018 and 2019 cat losses," SCOR said.

In India, SCOR Global P&C grew its portfolio and benefited from local market conditions which started to improve in 2019, resulting in circa 30 percent premium increase.

Meanwhile in the US, SCOR Global P&C followed the underwriting approach along the lines of its January renewals, with a special focus on profitability improvements. This led to a slight premium decrease as SCOR Global P&C did not renew or decreased its shares on treaties which did not meet its profitability targets.

The company noted that these reinsurance renewals demonstrate the resilience of SCOR’s operating model and its ability to generate cash flow in a challenging market environment.

Jean-Paul Conoscente, CEO of SCOR Global P&C, said: “During the April 1, 2020, renewals, SCOR Global P&C continues to demonstrate discipline in its underwriting approach, with a focus on both rate adequacy and prudent management of our exposures.

"We achieved very positive results overall, recording strong growth in markets and segments where rates and Terms & Conditions were in line with our targets, and foregoing incremental business opportunities where we felt conditions for profitable growth were not met."

"Japan is a good illustration of our strategic approach: we managed to achieve a 5.4% growth in this market, as the evolution in Property Cat premium linked to the remodeling of our portfolio with reduced exposure to lower frequency events was more than compensated through growth in other lines of business,” he concluded.