US drives SCOR P&C premium growth in January renewals, rates decline

SCOR has increased its property/casualty (P&C) premiums by 5.4 percent during January 2017 renewals at constant exchange rates to $3.2 billion.

The largest source of growth over the period is the United States: US clients have responded favorably to SCOR's ambition to grow the underrepresented US P&C book, the company said in a statement.

SCOR's global and long-term client relationships continue to provide relative renewals stability in Europe and Asia.

Gross premiums up for renewal in January 2017 represent around 65 percent of the total annual premiums of SCOR's P&C division.

Overall, the treaties renewal book at 1 January 2017 involved the renewal of €3.16 billion in gross premiums, 71 percent of which were treaty P&C and 29 percent were Specialty Treaties.

In terms of pricing, proportional business remained relatively stable, the company said. Non-proportional business was more resilient than in previous renewals. Consequently, expected technical profitability and risk-adjusted pricing only marginally declined compared to January 2016, by 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points respectively. The relative stability of these two indicators shows the stabilization of prices observed in the main markets.

SCOR continued to optimize the book through segmentation and management of the business mix. The group also received preferential terms and/or private layers on several notable accounts. The underwriting teams and the alternative solutions team jointly structured a number of bespoke transactions, the results of which are included in the premiums of each line of business and market, according to SCOR.

With these renewals, the division is on track to deliver the targets of "Vision in Action", which assumes a P&C combined ratio of 95 percent to 96 percent over the plan and annual P&C premium growth of 3 percent to 8 percent.

Victor Peignet, CEO of SCOR Global P&C, commented: "We are pleased to deliver well-controlled growth and satisfactory expected profitability in line with "Vision in Action". We are progressing as planned on our four main strategic development areas: we are finding opportunities in the US in treaties, we are expanding our business with MGAs, we are executing on the Channel Syndicate's 2017 plan following its approval by Lloyd's, and SCOR Business Solutions continues to deliver excellent profitability."

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