Thierry Léger, the CEO of global reinsurer SCOR, said this morning that his company is preparing for a January 2026 reinsurance renewals that could be even more competitive than it was earlier this year.With the reinsurance sector still very well capitalised, Léger anticipates that if that trend persists through the rest of this year, with no major disruptions or catastrophe losses, the 1/1 2026 renewal season may see competitive trends accelerate, with an inevitable impact on pricing.and provided comments on the renewals both in its announcement and a media call.On the mid-year renewals, the reinsurance company explained, “During the June-July 2025 renewals, SCOR continues to grow in its preferred and diversifying lines, maintaining its underwriting discipline in a competitive context.” Continuing to say, “Since the start of the year, SCOR has achieved gross premium growth of +6.2% for its renewed portfolio with a stable price evolution.

On a year-to-date basis, the net technical profitability is expected to remain unchanged for the renewed portfolio compared to last year.SCOR is successfully weathering a competitive environment thanks to its strategy of growing in a profitable and diversified way.” Adding that, “Looking ahead, SCOR anticipates a continued trend of overcapacity in the reinsurance segment, which is expected to exert pressure on pricing.Nonetheless, SCOR maintains a sharp focus on accessing attractive business opportunities, and is committed to maintaining stringent underwriting discipline, prepared to redeploy capital or reduce capacity if necessary to meet its hurdle rates.” During the media call held after the earnings release, SCOR’s CEO Thierry Léger went into some detail on market conditions and the expectations for the next major set of reinsurance renewals, at January 1st 2026.

Léger commented on the first-half and mid-year renewals, saying, “We have seen generally pressure on prices in the first half-year.We haven’t seen any external new competitors come in, but generally, the capital build of the incumbents has been strong, and accordingly, capacities are high and seek for deployment.So that creates this competitive environment we are in.

“We have seen only a few lines with loss impacted areas like aviation, where prices went up or kept with loss effects, where we have seen prices go up.But generally, there was pressure on prices across the lines, I would say, particularly so however, on the cat lines.As you know, typically the cat lines are the most cyclical.

“So overall deterioration of price quality, but still at a risk adequate level today.” Moving on to discuss the outlook for the key January 2026 renewals, Léger expects the competitive environment to persist and perhaps accelerate.“Looking ahead at first of January.The market is well capitalised.

The environment is competitive.I expect this to continue into the January renewals, I think we have to be realistic.That’s what we at SCOR prepare for.

It’s a market that might be even more competitive than in January 2025,” he explained.Adding, “But it will depend on the loss activity in Q3 and Q4 so we all will have to wait and see actually what the claims will be in the next six months.” Léger further stated, “At SCOR, we have a very distinct and very specific strategy to grow, and put diversification and profitability on equal standing.So we are always looking at business that is profitable, also adding to our diversification, and therefore the lines we grow into, very successfully and have grown into over the last two and a half years, we still expect those to add a lot of value to us also next year, even in a more competitive market.

“We think, therefore, that our strategy still fits the environment well, and this is the right response.“But again, we are not talking it down.We are very realistic.

We expect competition to be up, and that’s what we are preparing for.”.All of our Artemis Live insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bonds and reinsurance can be accessed online.Our can be subscribed to using the typical podcast services providers, including Apple, Google, Spotify and more.