SCOR, the Paris-headquartered global reinsurance company, took advantage of the highly competitive retrocession market at the January 1st, 2026, reinsurance renewals, optimising its placements as it benefited from reduced pricing, according to Jean-Paul Conoscente, P&C CEO at SCOR., SCOR grew its traditional reinsurance portfolio by 4.7% at 1.1 2026, with the firm highlighting that favourable retro market conditions supported an expected increase in its underwriting ratio of 2.0 percentage points for the year ahead.Recently, during a call with analysts on its experience at the January 1st renewals, Conoscente discussed the retro market in his opening remarks.“The retrocession market also experienced strong competition, with most participants looking to grow their exposures after several years of favourable results.

Taking advantage of this environment, we were able to optimise our retro placements with a broadly stable structure and slight adjustments on non-proportional retrocession covers,” said Conoscente.Later in the call, in response to a question on its retro purchasing for 2026, Conoscente stressed that SCOR’s retro programme for 2026 remains broadly unchanged from last year, in terms of both structure and types of coverage purchased.“As usual, we made targeted annual adjustments to reflect our evolving risk appetite and to optimise the conditions in the market.

And last year, we had done more significant changes to the programme, in terms of attachment points and shifts between proportional non-proportional,” he explained.“In 2026 we benefited meaningfully from lower pricing, as the retro market was highly competitive, mirroring what we observed on the assumed side, particularly for catastrophe covers,” added Conoscente.He went on to say that SCOR also achieved higher ceding commissions on proportional retrocession, which also served to strengthen the overall economics.

“Terms of conditions in 2026 remain broadly stable, in line with what we saw on the assumed book.Let’s say we were able to achieve some lower attachment points or slightly improved wordings on selected programmes, but it was fairly limited,” continued Conoscente.Additionally, he said that SCOR continues to see robust appetite from alternative capital providers for its retro placements, which also supports capacity availability and competitive pricing for the carrier..

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