SCOR targets hard reinsurance market expansion at 1/1: CEO Léger

France headquartered global reinsurer SCOR intends to take advantage of the hard reinsurance market conditions at the January 2024 renewals, to continue growing its book at what are seen as attractive margins, the firms CEO Thierry Léger said today.

In delivering the third-quarter and nine month results for the reinsurer under his leadership, Thierry Léger explained that the company remains focused on delivering its target for the year, helped by natural catastrophe losses falling below budget for the nine months.

However, the third-quarter saw natural catastrophe losses above budget for SCOR, as the company reported a 90.2% combined ratio for the three months in P&C reinsurance, and while the attritional loss ratio was seen as “satisfactory”, the company said that its “level of man-made claims is too high.”

Thierry Léger, Chief Executive Officer of SCOR, said, “The results over nine months confirm SCOR’s focus on delivering its targets. On the P&C side, we are below our Cat budget over the first nine months of 2023, but continued attention is required on the attritional loss ratio.

“Our objective as we prepare the 1.1 renewals is to continue to take advantage of the hard market with new business generation at very attractive margins.

“In L&H and Investments, we deliver stable and positive results. With a EUR 602 million nine-month result, I see us well placed to deliver on our Forward 2026 plan.”

SCOR’s insurance revenue metric reached EUR 4,235 million for Q3, up 10.2% compared to the prior year.

It helped in delivering EUR 147 million of net income, which SCOR said contributed to a strong nine-month performance with a net income of EUR 650 million.

For the nine months, SCOR’s P&C insurance revenue was up nearly 4% year-on-year, while the combined ratio came in at 88%, which is below budget and far better than the previous year.

Analysts are unimpressed though, citing net income roughly 20% below consensus and that the combined ratio was higher than consensus expectations as well due to a higher than expected nat cat ratio of 13.3% in Q3.

However, the underlying does look improved and SCOR appears better positioned now to grow moving forwards, while continuing to work on the loss ratios.

Finally, SCOR ceded less in insurance and reinsurance revenues in the third-quarter and nine months, meaning a negative reinsurance result for the periods, suggesting fewer recoveries under retrocessional arrangements this year.