Return to profitability a priority for Scor in 2023: Rousseau

Scor will focus on returning to profitability in 2023 following disappointing results in the third quarter, its chief executive said.

The Paris-based re/insurer reported an operating loss in its property/casualty business of €216m ($216.7m) in the third quarter of the year, as well as a 29.4-point increase in its combined ratio to 141.1%.

Speaking to journalists, Scor chief executive, Laurent Rousseau, said the business had a short-term plan in light of this “disappointing performance”.

“We will have three clear priorities in 2023: first we will restore profitability,” he said. “In parallel to ongoing underwriting and pricing actions, the group acts to contain the impact of inflation on its cost base.

"Building a nimble and lean organisation will lead to €125m efficiency gains by end 2025," he added. 

Rousseau stressed the business was committed to not making any redundancies during this efficiency drive.

The other business priorities include maximising its benefit from a hardening reinsurance market and improving the resilience of the company’s balance sheet.

Jean-Paul Conoscente, chief executive of Scor Global P&C, added the business would be much more selective about the clients it worked with.

“We feel the current terms and conditions we have across many lines of business, starting with property catastrophe, are the result of 20 years of soft market evolution of contract wording, attachment points and pricing, which need to be corrected,” he said.

On property catastrophe, Conoscente said Scor wanted to deploy its capacity to protect clients’ capital as opposed to their earnings and was looking at attachment points, coverage and pricing.

“Assuming these conditions are met, we do plan to deploy stable capacities and this is what we've told our clients,” he said.

If those conditions are not met, Scor would “shrink and reallocate capacity to those clients that actually meet those criteria," Conoscente added.