French reinsurer SCOR is currently seeing more or less flat property catastrophe reinsurance rates ahead of the January 1st, 2025, renewals, with price increases on loss affected programmes and pressure on loss free programmes in Europe and beyond, according to Jean-Paul Conoscente, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SCOR Property & Casualty.
Given Q3 was a very active quarter for catastrophe losses, driven by hurricanes in the US and severe flooding in parts of Europe, there’s been some debate around the influence of these events on property cat pricing during 2025.
Speaking recently during SCOR’s third quarter 2024 earnings call, Conoscente was questioned on the potential P&C pricing dynamics at the 1.1 renewals, and whether SCOR sees any softening or continued firming.
“It’s still early days, but what we see on the cat is more or less flat with price increases on programmes that have been loss affected. For example, we see in Central Europe price increases of double digit, 15-20% increases, and pricing pressure on loss free programmes in Europe and elsewhere,” said Conoscente.
In the US, Conoscente sees a similar trend.
“It’s really early to say whether there’ll be overall price increases on US, and the impact of Milton is sort of weighing in here. On large international programmes, we see more or less risk-adjusted flat,” he said.
Expanding on this, SCOR’s CEO, Thierry Léger, reminded the audience that the company is rather underweight in nat cat, so has a more diversified portfolio.
“And, as you know, our growth strategy is to continue to grow in this diversified way. And, we see just generally, a quite disciplined market, as I said in my preliminary remarks. Overall, we think that the market in P&C for SCOR offers many attractive opportunities,” said the CEO.
Conoscente echoed this sentiment, stating that from what SCOR is seeing, the expectation is for “strong growth” at the 1.1 renewal.
This morning’s earnings call followed the release of the firm’s Q3’24 results, with SCOR recording a net loss for the quarter as a result of a negative insurance service result in L&H reinsurance, although its P&C business performed strongly.
