Global reinsurer SCOR has highlighted favourable market conditions at the January 1st, 2021 renewals, as the firm grew its reinsurance treaty premium income up for renewal by 15.9%.
Overall, premiums increased by €472 million to €3.445 billion, with SCOR reporting an overall average price increase of 7.8%.
The re/insurer states that in many instances it was able to secure preferential terms with its key clients and benefited from a generalised reinforcement of terms and conditions – evidenced by the introduction of contagious disease exclusions on short-tail lines and selected long-tail lines.
Demand for reinsurance protection was robust at 1/1, notes SCOR, driven by general risk aversion. During the renewals, SCOR focused its growth on Europe, Fast Growth and Treaty Global Lines.
The French reinsurer states that overall technical profitability from the Jan reinsurance book renewed in 2021 substantially improved, with all lines of business and regions contributing.
Turning to specialty insurance, and SCOR says that market trends were even more positive than for treaties, enabling the firm to record gross premium growth of 16% in 2020 on the back of 23% rate increases for large commercial lines business.
Jean-Paul Conoscente, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SCOR Global P&C, commented: “The January 2021 renewals have shown a significant acceleration of market hardening for P&C reinsurance. In this supportive market environment, we fully leveraged our positioning and deep client relationships to achieve strong profitable growth, marked by a sizeable improvement of the profitability of our book across all regions and lines.
“Looking forward to future renewals, we are confident that price increases and improvements in terms and conditions will continue. We confirm the growth and profitability assumptions set for 2021 at SCOR’s September 2020 Investor day, which have been revised upwards since the launch of our “Quantum Leap” plan.”
SCOR is confident that the market will show further price increases and improved terms and conditions at the April and June / July 2021 renewals, noting that it is well placed to take full advantage of trends in both insurance and reinsurance, leveraging its global underwriting platform.
