SCRYY (SCRYY) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SCOR Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would now like to hand the call over to Mr. Thomas Fossard. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to SCOR Q3 2026 Results Conference Call. I'm joined on the call today by Thierry Leger, Group CEO; and Philipp Ruede, Group CFO; as well as other Comex members. On Slide 2, can I please ask you to consider the disclaimer for the presentation. And now I would like to hand over to Thierry.

Thank you, Thomas. Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. Before turning to our results, I would like to express our deepest sympathy to everyone affected by the tragic train accident in Spain. Our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones, the injured and their families. We are pleased to report a strong and clean set of results for the third quarter this year. Group net income reaches EUR 615 million in the first 9 months, corresponding to an annualized return on equity of 19.3%. We achieved this despite increased competition in P&C, a negative one-off arbitration impact in Life & Health in the second quarter and continued buffer building in P&C. Our solvency ratio stands at 221%, up 6 percentage points compared to year-end 2025. This reflects the elevated operating capital generation of all our activities. Year-to-date economic value growth is 11.9% at constant economics, well above our 9% annual growth target set under Forward 2026. P&C delivered a strong combined ratio of 81.3% in the first 9 months. The attritional loss ratio is at an excellent low level, allowing us to build additional buffer in our reserves. This demonstrates the quality of our highly diversified P&C portfolio. In Life & Health, performance has been in line with our expectations for 7 consecutive quarters now since the reset in 2024. That consistency strengthens my confidence in the quality of our Life & Health portfolio and its assumptions. Investments continue to provide a stable and positive contribution to group earnings. Based on this strong set of results for the first 9 months, I see SCOR well positioned to achieve our targets as we enter the final quarter of our 3-year strategic plan. Our teams are now fully focused on the 1st of January 2027 renewals. We expect competition to remain high and have a clear priority for our underwriters: margin and quality over volume. Over recent years, we have strengthened our capital discipline, remaining very selective and deploying capital only when risk return is attractive. In recent years, for example, we announced that our direct insurance business would exit U.S. casualty and space. These lines of business lack adequate margins and their negative outlook remains unchanged. Our Tier 1 franchise, technical expertise and strategic allocation of capital to diversifying in profitable lines of business position us well to navigate market headwinds. They also provide a strong foundation ahead of the next strategic cycle. Let me now address the recent events in France. Over the past 2 weeks, France has experienced social unrest and political turmoil. Based on our current assessment, we expect the impact on SCOR to remain limited and manageable. SCOR is a leader in the French market. and 1/4 of our workforce is based here. At the same time, our business is well diversified. We are operating in more than 150 countries. We have a very conservative investment strategy and our exposure to France accounts for approximately 5% of the group underwriting revenues. Looking ahead, we will present our new strategic plan on 3rd of December as we enter a new strategic cycle. Building on the solid foundations we have put in place through Forward 2026, SCOR is in a much stronger position today and can aim higher. We look forward to sharing our strategy with you, hopefully, in person in London soon. Philipp, over to you.

Thank you, Thierry. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the presentation of SCOR's Q3 2026 results. The key message today is simple: SCOR continues to deliver on its Forward 2026 strategic plan and is approaching its next strategic chapter from a position of confidence and strength. I'm particularly pleased that all 3 of our business activities delivered very strong results this quarter. Group net income reached EUR 206 million for the quarter. This translates into a Q3 ROE of 20.4%, well above our Forward 2026 target of 12%. Turning to P&C. We delivered a solid quarter despite several nat cat events. The nat cat ratio remains within budget at 9.1% over the quarter, absorbing the impact of the Colombian earthquake as well as several smaller events, including storms in Europe, fires in France and the flood in Bangkok. And as you know, we always take a prudent approach when opening loss estimates for nat cat. The combined ratio stands at 84.1%, below our 87% target, supported by a strong attritional performance, while we continue to build buffers. This performance clearly demonstrates the resilience of our P&C business. We are also pleased with our P&C insurance revenue, which is up at constant FX by 2.3% and at current FX by 3.5%, respectively, supported by strong 2025 and 2026 renewals. This performance comes despite continued EGPI revisions, although they were smaller this quarter. Over the first 9 months, we maintained a stable new business CSM in P&C of EUR 1.12 billion, a robust performance in the current soft market environment. On the one hand, we are benefiting from good business volumes, and we are ceding less margin to our retrocessionaires. And on the other hand, this is offset by reduced margins on the assumed side. Our Q3 new business CSM mostly reflects the timing of retrocession recognition. So I invite you to look at the 9 months period. In Life & Health, performance continues to be in line with our expectations. The insurance service result stands at a strong EUR 119 million over the quarter and includes a positive experience variance of EUR 12 million. Both on a quarterly and a 9-month basis, the new business CSM in Life & Health is increasing year-on-year. In Investments, we continue to benefit from the higher interest rate environment. Our regular income yield reaches a high of 4.1%, and this is partly due to a larger private equity fund distribution this quarter, which is not recurring in nature. The return on invested assets stands at 3.7%, while the reinvestment rate is attractive at 5% as of the 30th of September. SCOR's economic value stands at EUR 8.9 billion, an increase of 11.9% at constant economics over the first 9 months of the year. Our balance sheet continues to strengthen, and our solvency ratio now reaches 221%, supported by a strong underlying capital generation year-to-date. Overall, Q3 sustains the strong momentum of recent quarters. With all 3 business activities delivering strong results, we are entering the final phase of Forward 2026 with full confidence in our ability to deliver. Let's now move to Q&A. Over to you, Thomas.

Thank you, Philipp. Operator, we can start the Q&A, and we'll take the first question. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] First question is from Shanti Kang, Bank of America.

So just on the attritional loss ratio, that looked very strong, and that still included the buffers that you mentioned. I guess that implies that the underlying run rate is even better. I was just wondering if you could help us quantify the additional buffer build that you've done here. I presume that was on IBNRs, and perhaps which lines they might have been distributed on? And then to follow that, I think at 1H, you suggested that the very strong attritional performance should support earnings for several quarters forward. How much visibility do you think that gives you on maintaining the combined ratio into 2027 despite the rate softening that we're seeing?

Yes. Thank you. I mean, for the second question, I mean, we continue to message that we think that we are still -- will still be able to build buffers into the future. But beyond that, I will have to refer to the CMD. And then on your first question, with regards to the buffer build, we wouldn't comment on a quarterly basis. But I'll let Jean-Paul maybe add some commentary on the, as you rightly say, very strong attritional performance.

Yes. Thank you, Philipp. I think this quarter was again quite active in terms of losses. The loss environment, you have the QatarEnergy loss in the Middle East. You had a few other energy and other man-made losses this quarter. But the good attritional performance is a reflection, first, of our strict underwriting discipline and deploying, I'd say, control limits on high-risk areas. Secondly, a very good price adequacy of the portfolio that we've underwritten in 2025 and 2026 earning through. 2026, despite the price decreases, as we mentioned before, we estimate the deterioration between '25 and '26 to be limited to approximately 2 points of combined ratio, and that's what we continue to see in the results so far.

And Shanti, if I may add on the attritional, you might remember, 2023 was the first year where, from an underwriting basis, the market really hardened dramatically. And despite that, on an earned-through basis, on an accounting basis, the attritional was still relatively high. We have voiced that multiple times in 2023. We have -- almost every quarter, we said we are not satisfied. But I also emphasize that I expect, slowly, the more healthy environment to trickle through our accounting results. And so what we see here is, yes, on the one hand, the results have deteriorated a little bit from an underwriting perspective, but they are still on a good level, and they still take time to trickle through the attritional. So we always expect the attritional to be relatively sticky over time.

Next question is from Kamran Hossain, JPMorgan.

The first one is something you might not be able to give us the exact details on right now, but it's on thinking about -- you're obviously deep in the weeds on putting together the CMD plans. As you said in your commentary, SCOR is in a much, much, much stronger position than it was kind of a few years ago. The difference is kind of night and day. But just want to kind of think about it in that you saw a peer who basically put out a strategic plan at the end of last year, and I think we were all caught by surprise on how quickly some things got worse. Do you think when you're thinking about your new plan, you'll reflect a multiyear softening in the market and in your guidance? I just think -- just trying to understand your thought process on what that might look like because I know you have quite a cautious guide. And the second question is on just an updated view on pricing. Clearly, at Monte Carlo, everyone expected prices to go down. Hurricane season has been -- I mean it's been a record quiet. Just interested in any kind of updated view on pricing, particularly in property cat since Monte Carlo.

Kamran, I will take your first question, and then Jean-Paul will cover the second. So first of all, thanks for the night and day comparison. And it's a little bit how it feels. So we do actually feel, as we said it, in a much better position now. We are obviously eyes wide open with regard to the softening market on the P&C side. We have a strategy. We have said it multiple times. It's about diversifying growth in a market that we still see as attractive opportunities for us. When we look ahead -- of course, we will have to wait for the CMD. But when we look ahead, we absolutely take into account a further softening in our predictions. So we absolutely don't assume a blue sky scenario that will most probably never happen. We have to expect us to come up with something very realistic, taking into account the current market environment. Don't forget, however, there's also a Life business that is important for us. There's an investment side that is important for us. So we will obviously have a plan, not just in P&C, although a lot of focus is on that side. I can't emphasize enough how we see opportunities as well on the Life & Health side.

And on your other question, I mean, it's still very early in the process. I think what we're seeing in terms of the treaty renewals, generally, globally, it's a very late renewal with many submissions not even yet sent to reinsurers. On the few that we've seen so far and discussions we've had at Baden-Baden and -- the last month, the focus has been really on pricing. And given the good, as you said, loss experience, we expect there to be continued pressure on pricing. In cat, in particular, right now, it's a few European countries that are being quoted and probably final terms. Here, we see price decreases, I'd say, high single digit, low double digit is what we're seeing so far.

Next question is from Andrew Baker, Goldman Sachs.

First one, can I just come back to the attritional? Clearly, really strong, and thank you for outlining some of the drivers. I guess you didn't mention anything on mix effects. Are you getting any material benefits coming through from the growth in the nat cat exposure this year? And I guess, if you are, why haven't we seen any offsetting impact from an increase in the cat budget? And then secondly, again, still on P&C Re, if that's okay, are you able to just help me with the direction of the CSM amortization? It looks like, year-to-date, it's down about 7%. 3Q, it was down 12%. I appreciate there's probably a lot of moving pieces here, but can you just help me understand the sort of direction of this CSM amortization on the P&C Re side? And then hopefully, if I can just squeeze a third one in, on the Life & Health Re risk adjustment, I noticed this one declined from about EUR 2.5 billion at full year '25 to EUR 2 billion at 9 months and 3Q, again, stand-alone declined. Again, any help on understanding what's driving this would be really helpful.

Andrew, I'll take the first one, and Philipp, the second and third. And Jean-Paul, feel free to add. So on the attritional, absolutely, the mix effect is there. It's a minor effect, but it has a positive impact for us as we -- but it's not mainly because we grow into cat. It's more visible because we actually don't grow or even shrink casualty U.S. So that has the major mix impact. But we also profit from other lines where actually the development is quite nice. So the shift that you mentioned to cat is not as dramatic as you would think. We have been very clear with Jean-Paul that, on a net basis, we keep the [ pool ] relatively flat. There's some increase, but it's not changing the 10% guidance that we gave. On the CSM side, Philipp?

Yes. So maybe first on the Life & Health risk adjustment. So this is actually mostly driven by foreign exchange and interest rates. So the risk adjustment follows our internal model and the internal model, as you would expect, since that's the present value of future cash flow, is quite sensitive to interest rates and FX. And then a part is also the normal release of the risk adjustment as the uncertainty reduces over time. So this is kind of fully in line with what we would expect, given the links to the economic environment. Then I have to say, for the CSM amortization in P&C, you would need to look at it on a 9-month basis, but I have to say we will get back to you on the exact figures. We don't have it right now.

And Andrew, I just wanted to add to the attritional just a second because I said it has a minor impact on the mix, which is true. But the key impact is coming from the quality of the portfolio, just simply a portfolio that reflects the healthy nature of the business we have written in the last 2 years.

And maybe just to add to this, as Thierry mentioned, we're taking an underweight position, I'd say, proactively on the U.S. casualty, given what we view as the price inadequacy. But the rest of the portfolio is very well spread across different lines of business. And so when we have loss activity, it very rarely happened across all lines of business, and this is how we're generating the good attritional performance.

Next question is from Vinit Malhotra, Mediobanca.

I'll just pick up one on the attrition, again, apologies for that. It is a temptingly strong number, so congrats. But one on attritional and one on the revenue trend. So on the attritional, I think -- so my question is that the very strong print we are getting if we clean up for the prudence maybe 72%, 73% range attritional is coming also from P&C being strong in the last 2 years. And last time you commented that there was some pressure in Florida, but not really outside. So I'm just curious that -- and now you said Baden-Baden was mostly about pricing. So I'm just curious, how should we read this P&C situation today? Is it the fact that it is an important part of this trend that we can see? And are you seeing that people are holding up with a discipline in P&C? So that's my first question. Second question is revenues between reinsurance and SBS, the trends were quite opposite to the previous quarter. And I'm just curious if -- so we understand the cedent updates or EGPI revisions are better in Q3 versus Q2 or Q1 even. Is there something structurally that explains that? And also on SBS, is that something we should know about this trend of slower growth? Because at Q2, I think the expectation was laid out that it will be a bigger number in terms of growth on SBS. So that's the 2 topics, please.

Yes. On your first question, which was very broad, again, the price -- I'd say, the price discussion, the renewal discussion really varies by line of business. We see some lines of business have been loss affected, for example, marine, energy, war, political violence, there, the significant price increases. Others that have been less loss affected, there's pressure on pricing. So it's really a matter of seeing where we are today from a price adequacy point of view and how much additional price is required or how much reductions are acceptable. So it's hard to give you an answer, Vinit, because it really varies by country, by line of business, but that's, I'd say, typically what we do every renewal. Overall, this is where we give you -- in the renewal update, we give you the overall view, which is sort of the [ agglomeration ] of the price change by line of business and the portfolio mix effect. So that gives you a good idea overall. And the outlook for '27 as it stands today, but we'll confirm this in a few months' time, would be something in line with what we saw in '26 so far. On your second question in terms of revenue, I think the revenue you saw this quarter is coming both from reinsurance and SBS. Reinsurance is the result of the strong renewals that we reported on. So this is consistent with what we saw. Prior quarters were affected by EGPI revisions, this quarter, less so. We anticipate sort of the EGPI revisions continue to be an issue for clients going forward. So we're adding some conservatism in our own EGPI estimates, and we take typically a haircut over what the clients will be estimating. So this gives us a prudent vision of where EGPI will be going forward. On the SBS side, the portfolio has been very concentrated in short-tail lines and property, energy, construction. Those are the lines on the insurance side that have been the most under pressure in terms of rating. That was the effect we saw at the beginning of the year. There's been a strong push from the teams to try to diversify the portfolio in other lines of business. And what we see in this quarter is basically a result of that diversification. So the expectation for SBS going forward will still be some growth. You have to remember that we exited a few lines of business. So how that translates in the first quarter of '27 will be affected by these exits. But overall, the trajectory is for SBS to continue to be a good driver of revenue growth.

One additional thought, Vinit, I wanted to leave you with to also think about retro. You know that we are a large user of retrocessions. So actions that we take on that side have an impact on our net margins and net revenues. And you have to expect that in this current market environment, we will be very active users of that to optimize our revenues and margins.

Next question is from Benoit Valleaux, ODDO BHF.

The first one is regarding still a follow-up on renewals. When I look at Solvency II margin at the end of September, it seems that there is no real impact coming from any review on your expectation regarding January 1 renewal because in the past, we saw a few years ago, for example, that Solvency II is 12 months overdue. Maybe I will say expectation on January 1 renewal might lead to some impact and some gap on Q3 solvency margin versus Q2. It is not the case this year. So can you confirm that there is no impact on renewals, even if it's less renewal, as you said, at this stage, you expect these renewals to be broadly in line with your initial expectations? And 2 very short questions [Audio Gap] tax rate, which returned to bit more normal level at Q2. [Audio Gap] expected going forward, or it's still a bit too early? And thirdly, regarding your asset allocation, do you plan to change anything in terms of breakdown between [ govies ], corporate bonds and whatever due to recent change in interest rate and spreads?

Okay. So on the first one, your question is about the impact on solvency of renewal and of the future next plan, and there's no impact of any kind of that. So maybe just if we look at Q3, first of all, we didn't have good luck on the nat cat side. And we still accrue the dividend as we -- in any quarter. And the new business on the P&C side is light. So the 221% is absolutely in line with our expectation, considering that in terms of capital generation, this is typically a low quarter from that point of view. Then I'm sorry, you broke off a tiny bit when you asked your question on the effective tax rate. But what you see in this quarter is essentially driven by what we started in the second quarter, which is reducing our valuation allowance on the French deferred tax assets. And therefore, you observe a lower figure as a result of that. But if I misunderstood your question, you can clarify.

Maybe just to know what could be a normalized tax rate going forward? Do you have a view on that?

Yes, I have a view that we might share at the Investor Day. Good. And then on the asset allocation, no, the current interest rate environment would not have any impact on our strategic asset allocation or our likeness or dislikeness of risky assets. We remain comfortable with our conservative investment portfolio. What you see is a bit more consequences of our ALM, where I remind you that we lengthened the duration, and to lengthen the duration, we had to buy certain government bonds. So it's a bit more driven -- on the more granular level, it's driven by ALM. And just to remind you that we have no exposure to French government debt.

Next question is from Iain Pearce, BNP Paribas.

The first one is just on the impact of the retro that you flagged on the new business CSM. Can you just run me through this? I don't really understand the seasonality point and why the retro is sort of negative for new business CSM. And the second one is on Life. I mean the Life operating cash flow in Q3 looks super strong. Could you just flag sort of what's driving that? Obviously, it's the first quarter we've had sort of post the Covea arbitration. Anything sort of one-off in there? Just sort of give us a bit of an idea for sort of what's been going on in the Life cash flow number? And then the third one is a bit more of a general one. But obviously, you're sort of 7 quarters removed from the Life reset with generally sort of pretty solid experience variance since then. I mean, are you at a point now where you feel confident that, that reset was sufficient and you're happy to grow? Sort of how long do you think you have to wait to see no negative experience variance before you're sort of confident that those assumptions are solid in the business and you got a strong footing to grow?

Yes. So on the P&C new business CSM, as I tried to already frame in my intro, it's really you need to look at it on a year-to-date basis because the timing between when we book the assumed new business CSM and when we book the retro -- it's also new business CSM, but outwards, there's always kind of some timing effects between the quarter. So sometimes it's just not in sync exactly for multiple kind of reasons. So there's just noise in there, nothing more than you should read in it. So I would just look at it on a year-to-date basis to take out some of that noise. And then, I mean, just to remind you that when you looked at our communication in terms of the renewals, we said that the net deterioration was around 2 points and the gross was around 1 point. So it does buffer some of the softening in the market, as you can see when you look at the 9 months period. Then on your Life & Health cash flow question, indeed, that is a good question. So the cash flow is really volatile from quarter-to-quarter. Some of the timing issues between premiums and claims and the ordinary business cash movement. So inherently, there's a lot of volatility. But the Covea arbitration is only a small portion of the overall cash flow. So you should not read into that a new run rate rather that there is volatility. But of course, on the positive side, we are now quite confident that in 2026, we will reach our objective of neutral or positive cash flow on the Life & Health side. However, right, I would say, in isolation, it is really not a good indication of distributable cash generation at the holding level. As a matter of fact, a lot of our U.S. business is in subsidiaries and therefore, does not translate immediately in either direction in distributable cash at the holding company.

So I suggest that Pilar answers your second question on Life & Health around where business plans, the opportunities. It's true that so far, we had a good run. And so Pilar, the question is, do we expect that to continue?

Yes, indeed, we are satisfied with the set of results we are achieving this quarter, which is the continuation of a very positive year. I think there are several positives that we need to take into consideration. The new business CSM is evolving very well. Actually, if you compare the 3 quarters in 2026 with the previous year, you can observe that the business is growing, but as well the business mix within the new business CSM is as well improving directionally, following the focus that we want to take, which is reducing protection, increasing financial solutions, increasing longevity, and this can be seen in the mix. This quarter, the new business CSM is aligned with expectations. And actually, it's incorporating a good contribution from financial solutions despite typically Q3 is quieter, but it's a good indicator of how focused the teams are. We said that it was going to take some time, right, to make things on longevity increase. However, we are very satisfied seeing the market dynamics, and we are very confident on the pipeline that we are building in. At the same time, results, the ISR is strong this quarter. So all in all, we are quite confident on how the year could look like for Life & Health.

Thank you, Pilar. On your last question, Iain, we are, as you mentioned, now in the seventh quarter after the Life & Health reset in 2024. At the time, I was very clear that we would want to wait 8 quarters, so 1 quarter more. And we said if, during those 8 quarters, we will see a steady in-line development of our business, we would really be finally comfortable with our assumptions that we have adapted at the time, but also in the way we run our business. I was very clear at the time that the reset had to do with assumptions, but also had to do with how we run and manage our in-force management. So now 7 quarters in, with our performance in line with expectations, rather even a bit better than expected overall, I'm positive with regard to the 8 quarters. I'm today very positive that we will conclude that we have done what was needed and can now clearly go and hunt for the opportunities that Pilar was mentioning a minute ago.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's Q&A session. Sorry, we have one more question from Benoit Valleaux, ODDO BHF.

Sorry, if I may have a follow-up question. Just can you give us an update on your expectation from the Solvency II review impact?

No, we would stick with the current guidance of 10% to 15% and then, of course, give you an update at the Investor Day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's Q&A session. At this time, I would like to hand the call back to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.

So thank you very much for attending the conference call. As a reminder, SCOR will release its new strategic plan at its Investor Day in London on the 3rd of December. So please register and join us to enjoy the day. And with that, we wish you a good day. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.