French reinsurer SCOR said it benefited strongly from continued improvements in pricing and terms and conditions, during the April 1, 2021 reinsurance renewals – a continuation of trends already seen during the January renewals.
SCOR’s gross premiums, up for renewal, increased by 14.3% at constant exchange rates to €600 million (US$719 million), with a 4.3% overall increase in pricing.
The technical profitability of the portfolio benefited from rate-on-rate compounding effects after last year’s price increases.
The bulk of the portfolio renewing on April 1 (64%) 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, said SCOR. The United States represents 16% of the portfolio which renewed on April 1.
SCOR detailed its performance in these markets:
- Japan. SCOR grew premiums in Japan by 3% at constant exchange rates to €156 million ($186.9 million), benefiting from price increases of 12.3% (over the same period in 2020) for Japanese catastrophe excess-of-loss programs. During the renewals, the reinsurer was able to partially redeploy its capacity away from frequency-affected layers, while accelerating its payback from the 2018 and 2019 typhoon losses.
- India. Leveraging its Tier 1 position in India as well as positive market conditions in the country, SCOR achieved significant premium growth of +21% at constant exchange rates, reaching €178 million ($213.2 million).
- United States. SCOR said it held to its disciplined underwriting approach in the U.S. to deliver a close to stable topline (-1%) of €83 million ($99.4 million), having focused its growth on geographies with market conditions deemed more appealing.
To date, SCOR has renewed approximately 78% of its reinsurance treaty portfolio and is well on track to achieve its 2021 growth and technical profitability assumptions.
In Specialty Insurance, SCOR said it continues to benefit fully from a rate-on-rate compounding effect on large industrial and commercial single risks, with rate increases of 16% 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.
“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,” commented Jean-Paul Conoscente, CEO of SCOR Global P&C.
“These renewals fully confirm the outlook we provided in September 2020 of significant and generalized market hardening trends,” he continued in a statement. “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.”
Source: SCOR
Topics Trends Pricing Trends Reinsurance
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