SCOR sees healthy growth in reinsurance premiums at April 1 renewals

Reinsurer SCOR significantly grew its reinsurance premiums at the April 1, 2021 renewals, benefiting from the continued improvements in pricing and terms and conditions already seen during the January renewals.

SCOR grew its gross premiums up for renewal by 14.3 percent at constant exchange rates to €600 million, with a 4.3 percent overall increase in pricing.

The technical profitability of the portfolio benefited from rate-on-rate compounding effects after last year’s price increases. The company said these continued improvements in pricing and terms and conditions are fully in line with the positive outlook set in September 2020 at the Investor Day and already observed in January.

The bulk of the portfolio renewed on April 1 (64 percent) is in the Asia-Pacific region, of which Japan and India are the most significant markets, each accounting for approximately 28-29 percent of total premiums up for renewal.

In Japan, SCOR grew premiums by 3 percent at constant exchange rates to €156 million, benefiting from significant price increases, while partially redeploying its capacity away from frequency-affected layers. SCOR benefited from price increases of 12.3 percent year-on-year on Japanese CAT excess-of-loss programs, accelerating its payback from the 2018 and 2019 typhoon losses.

In India, SCOR achieved significant premium growth of +21 percent at constant exchange rates, reaching €178 million.

In the United States, which represents 16 percent of the portfolio up for renewal at April 1, SCOR delivered a close to stable topline (-1 percent) of €83 million, having focused its growth on geographies with market conditions deemed more appealing.

To date, SCOR has renewed approximately 78 percent of its reinsurance treaty portfolio and says it is well on track to achieve its 2021 growth and technical profitability assumptions, as presented at the September 2020 Investor day. These assumptions include 15 percent EGPI growth at constant exchange rates, 11 percent gross written premium growth at constant exchange rates, and a normalised combined ratio trending downwards towards 95 percent and below for the 2021 financial year.

In Specialty Insurance, SCOR continues its development while continuing to benefit fully from a rate-on-rate compounding effect on large industrial and commercial single risks, with rate increases of 16 percent across all lines of business for the Q1 renewals. The continued market improvements are spread across most lines of business and geographies, with sustained significant rate increases.

Jean-Paul Conoscente, CEO of SCOR Global P&C, said: “SCOR Global P&C’s successful April 2021 renewals, which are heavily skewed towards Asia-Pacific, confirm the excellent market trends for P&C re/insurance seen in January, with sizeable technical profitability improvements across regions and lines. These renewals fully confirm the outlook we provided in September 2020 of significant and generalised market hardening trends. We believe that improvements in pricing and terms and conditions on the P&C re/insurance market will continue for future renewals. In this supportive market environment, SCOR is ideally positioned to seize profitable growth opportunities thanks to the depth of its franchise, its recognised technical expertise, its deep relationships with clients and its ability to meet their needs.”

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