SCOR grows reinsurance premiums by 14.3% in 1 April renewals

Paris-headquartered global reinsurer SCOR says that it posted gross premiums of EUR600m ($719m) at the 1 April renewal season, representing year-on-year growth of 14.3%. Pricing rose by 4.3%.

The reinsurer says that it benefitted from the continued improvements in pricing and terms and conditions already seen during the January renewals.

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

Asia

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

In Japan, SCOR grew premiums by 3% at constant exchange rates to EUR156m, benefiting from significant price increases, while partially redeploying its capacity away from frequency-affected layers. Fully leveraging its deep client relationships and the strength of its position on this market, SCOR benefited from price increases of 12.3% 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% at constant exchange rates, reaching EUR178m. SCOR says that to date, it has renewed approximately 78% of its reinsurance treaty portfolio and is well on track to achieve its 2021 growth and technical profitability assumptions. These assumptions 11% gross written premium growth at constant exchange rates, and a normalised combined ratio trending downwards towards 95% and below for the 2021 financial year.

Mr 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.”

Source: Asia Insurance Review