Earnings call transcript: SCOR’s Q3 2025 highlights strong net income growth

SCOR SE reported a robust financial performance for the third quarter of 2025, with a net income of €211 million and a return on equity of 21.5%. Despite an increasingly competitive reinsurance market, the company maintained its group solvency ratio at 210%. SCOR’s stock remained stable, closing at €27.82, near its 52-week high of €28.18. The stock has delivered an impressive 38.12% return over the past year, with a particularly strong six-month gain of 51.66%, according to InvestingPro data.

Key Takeaways

• SCOR achieved a net income of €211 million in Q3 2025.
• The company maintained a strong group solvency ratio of 210%.
• SCOR’s stock price closed at its 52-week high of €27.82.

Company Performance

SCOR’s performance in Q3 2025 showcased its resilience amidst market pressures. The company reported a net income of €211 million, contributing to a nine-month net income of €631 million. The return on equity stood at 21.5%, reflecting efficient capital utilization. SCOR’s diversified growth strategies and disciplined underwriting have helped it navigate a competitive reinsurance landscape.

Financial Highlights

• Net Income: €211 million for Q3 2025
• Return on Equity: 21.5% in Q3 2025
• Group Solvency Ratio: 210%, stable from Q2
• Economic Value Growth: 12.7% at constant economics

Outlook & Guidance

SCOR anticipates continued competitiveness in the reinsurance market, focusing on profitability over volume. The company targets a life and health insurance service result of €400 million and plans to maintain capital generation of 1-2 solvency points annually. SCOR remains cautious about market softening but sees opportunities in emerging risk areas such as climate change and cyber threats.

Executive Commentary

Thierry Léger, Group CEO, emphasized the company’s long-term commitment to its clients, stating, "We are here for the long term and support our clients when they need us." He also highlighted the focus on fundamentals, saying, "We will stay focused on fundamentals and deploy capital where risk-adjusted returns are adequate."

Risks and Challenges

• Market Competition: Increasing competitiveness in the reinsurance market could pressure margins.
• Climate Change: Growing climate-related risks may impact underwriting strategies.
• Geopolitical Tensions: Uncertainties could affect global operations and investment decisions.
• Cyber Threats: Rising cyber risks necessitate enhanced risk assessment and mitigation strategies.

SCOR’s strategic initiatives and robust financial metrics position it well for future challenges, despite the evolving market dynamics. The company’s focus on diversification and disciplined underwriting continues to underpin its strong performance.

Full transcript - Scor SE S (SCR) Q3 2025:

Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SCOR Q3 2025 results conference call. Today’s call is being recorded. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after the presentation. In order to give all participants a chance to ask questions, we kindly ask you to limit the number of your questions to two. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to Mr. Thomas Fossard. Please go ahead, sir.

Thomas Fossard, Moderator/Investor Relations, SCOR: Good afternoon and welcome to the SCOR Q3 2025 results conference call. I’m joined today by Thierry Léger, Group CEO, and François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, as well as other COMEX members. Can I please ask you to consider the disclaimer on page two of the presentation? I would like to hand over to Thierry Léger. Thierry, over to you.

Thierry Léger, Group CEO, SCOR: Thank you, Thomas, and welcome everyone also from my side. I’m satisfied with where SCOR stands today. We had another strong quarter, especially in P&C, where our strategy of diversifying growth pays off. The investment side continues to contribute in a stable and positive way to our results. Last but not least, on the life and health side, we deliver one quarter more in line with the updated Forward 2026 plan. Also, we are ready for the renewals to come and very focused on the delivery of our plan. Our teams are close to our clients, leveraging our tier one franchise. We offer tailored solutions that create value for our clients and shareholders.

In a P&C context that has become gradually more competitive since 2024, I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on the broader insurance landscape and the opportunities for SCOR as we approach the 2026 renewals. Looking back, 2025 has been a good year for the P&C industry so far. Overall, 2026 is expected to remain a good vintage year by historical standards. Nevertheless, as profits are up and the supply of capacity now exceeds demand, even if demand continues to grow, it results in increased pressure on prices, and underwriting discipline is being tested. I have seen this before. This is the time when wrong strategic decisions can have a detrimental impact on a company’s results. Usually, it is driven by the desire to grow in a particular line, some lines of business, at the wrong time. Let me state this here very clearly.

Such situations can be avoided, and at SCOR, we are determined to keep underwriting discipline high throughout the cycle. Our business is one of diversification and volatility absorption. We are here for the long term and support our clients when they need us. We have to demonstrate strengths and resilience when times are difficult. For SCOR, this means that we will stay focused on fundamentals and deploy capital where risk-adjusted returns are adequate. We are maintaining our underwriting discipline, focusing on diversifying risk exposures and leveraging our analytical capabilities to support our teams to make the right decisions. In addition, our tier one franchise provides us with the opportunity to choose where we allocate our capital in a determined way. I’m pleased to see that our teams are undistracted and fully focused on our clients and the business.

They have no growth targets, but I have expressly asked them to leave no stone unturned to find profitable opportunities for SCOR and to discuss tailored solutions with our clients proactively. The aim is to balance long-term client relationships with bottom line, the latter being the priority ultimately. For our investors, this means a continued focus on capital efficiency, risk-adjusted returns, and long-term value creation through the cycles. We will keep expanding in diversifying lines such as inherent defect insurance, engineering, credit and insurance, structured solutions, international casualty, facultative business, and longevity. We have a very selective approach to marine, aviation, cyber, and U.S. casualty, monitoring the dynamics closely. In that CAT, where the cycle is most prevalent, we will monitor relative and absolute price levels, structures, and conditions to determine where we deploy our capital.

We will further consider our market share and exposure to climate change when we allocate our capacities. We continue to be underweight in that CAT. As long as rate adequacy is sufficient, this gives us room to grow while respecting the risk limits we set for ourselves for Forward 2026. To conclude, climate change, geopolitical tensions, cyber threats, and AI create a more volatile and more uncertain environment. Increasing risk awareness and demand for risk transfer. The need for a robust reinsurance industry is palpable, and growth opportunities are structural. Within this context, at SCOR, we remain confident in our strategy and optimistic about opportunities ahead, even in a more competitive market. François, over to you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thank you, Thierry. Hello everyone. I will now walk you through our third quarter results. Starting with a few key messages, Thierry and I, we continue to be very satisfied with these results. The performance of our three business activities is strong, delivering €211 million of net income, 21.5% return on equity, and an economic value growth of 12.7% at constant economics. On a nine-month basis, the net income stands at €631 million, translating into return on equity of 19.5%. As mentioned by Thierry, P&C performance is excellent. The combined ratio for Q3 is at 80.9%, well ahead of our Forward 2026 assumption of below 87%. These results reflect the very low CAT claims during the quarter and the slightly higher attritional loss ratio. In this context, we have continued implementing our opportunistic buffer-building strategy, albeit with an addition in Q3 of lower magnitude than in Q1 and Q2.

The amount of prudence built over the first nine months of 2025 is equal to the entire prudence of 2024. In life and health, with an insurance service result of €98 million in Q3 and a year-to-date expense variance in line with our expectation, we are on track to reach our full year Forward 2026 assumption of around €400 million. Investment, as another good quarter, we achieve a 3.5% regular income yield thanks to our high-quality fixed income portfolio that continues to benefit from elevated reinvestment rates. Our economic value increases by 12.7%. A translation of the good business performance both in P&C and life and health. It is now very likely that our full year EV growth will stand above our Forward 2026 guidance of 9%. Our group solvency ratio stands at 210%, stable to Q2, in the upper part of our optimal range.

Q3 is a relatively low net operating capital generation quarter, given the absence of major P&C treaty renewals. Overall, thanks to the quality of our results over the first nine months, we remain confident about achieving our full year objective. Now, I will go on with more details regarding our Q3 results. Let’s look at P&C first. In Q3, the P&C new business ESM is mostly stable year on year, excluding the effect. This is a strong achievement in an increasingly competitive environment. On a nine-month basis, our P&C new business ESM grows by 4%, benefiting from our strategic growth in preferred line, as well as our dynamic retrocession buying, which offsets the inward business margin erosion. The P&C insurance revenue is down -1.6% for the quarter and up +3.1% at constant FX. In Q3, this is supported by growth in both reinsurance as well as core business solutions.

In reinsurance, the growth was driven by alternative solutions and our diversifying specialty lines. In core business solutions, the trend has improved compared to the previous quarter, as the timing effect on the renewal of some contracts has now caught up. In addition, here as well, the growth was supported by alternative solutions and by our syndicate activities, partially offset by property. On a year-to-date basis, and adjusted for the large impact of the termination of one large contract and adjusted as well for FX, the P&C insurance revenue growth stands at +1%. Moving to the underlying performance of the P&C book, our P&C combined ratio stands at 80.9% in Q3, benefiting from low net CAT losses in the quarter. Net CAT ratio stands at 2.7% in Q3 and 6.4% year-to-date, which means well below the annual budget of 10%.

Let’s now focus a little bit on the attritional loss ratio, which is slightly more elevated this quarter than the previous quarter of the year. In Q3, specifically, we incurred an accumulation of small and mid-sized man-made claims. After investigating and checking the nature of those claims, I can tell you today that we do not expect at this stage of the annual P&C reserve review any overall attritional deterioration of the P&C book by the end of the year. This outlook is supported by the fact that we tend to take the bad news upfront, especially this quarter, not financed by IBNRs, and we release the good news later. On a year-to-date basis, the attritional loss and commission ratio stands at a robust 77.1%, which includes the prudence built throughout the year. We are very satisfied with the shape of our P&C portfolio, delivering excellent performance quarter after quarter.

Now, let’s have a look at life and health. The life and health business generates a new business ESM of $82 million in Q3. This is mainly driven by the protection business and by financial solutions. This is lower than in the previous quarter of the year, but related to quarterly normal volatility. On a nine-month basis, with a new business ESM of $284 million, we are well on track toward achieving the $0.4 billion new business ESM annual assumption. On the insurance service result, life and health deliver €98 million this quarter, with a CSM amortization of 7.5% in the quarter. Adjusted for small one-off from Q2 and FX effect, the year-to-date CSM amortization stands at 7%, not far from our Forward 2026 guidance of 6.5%. Overall, we deliver over the first nine months an ISR of €334 million, in line with our annual guidance of €400 million.

On experience variance, this is fully in line with our expectation year-to-date. In Q3, the impact of onerous contracts was a little bit higher, partially driven by an increase in the risk adjustment and other reserve movements. This remains contained in relation to the size of our portfolio. Moving to investments, we continue to benefit from a strong performance with a return on invested asset of 3.3% this quarter, generating an income of €190 million. This comes from a regular income yield of 3.5%, as well as from a real estate impairment this quarter and slightly higher ECL expected credit losses in the quarter. This creates no specific concern. The quality of our credit invested portfolio is very high. The economic value stands at €40 per share, flat compared to the start of the year. Year-to-date market variance had a negative impact, as expected, on our reported economic value.

At constant FX, our EV growth stands at 12.7%, supported by both the positive evolution of our IFRS 17 shareholder equity and the growth of our CSM. With this, I will hand over to Thomas to start the Q&A session.

Thank you very much, François. On page 17, you will find the forthcoming scheduled events. With this, we can now move to the Q&A session. Can you remind you to limit yourself to two questions each? With this, operator, can we move to the first question? Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This is the operator. The first question comes from Harley Cohen, Morgan Stanley.

Hi, thanks very much. Thierry, François, thank you. I appreciate you’re very satisfied with the results, and I think I can understand why, but I’m not sure that the share price necessarily agrees today. In that context, can you help us unpack what’s going on in the solvency ratio, please? You’ve got $200 million, a bit higher than that, of earnings, less $80 million for dividend accrual. You say that there’s seasonally lower no new business value, and markets are neutral, but even so, I’m still not sure why the solvency ratio is lower. In that vein, I sort of wonder how much of that is impacted by the fact that you are building buffers in the reserves. I know you haven’t quantified the buffer build year-to-date, but is it possible to give us a sense of how much higher solvency might have been if you hadn’t done that?

Linked to this, given the buffers are now twice as big as you initially intended, how are you thinking about further buffers from here, given people clearly want to see growth in the solvency ratio? There are a few questions in there, so maybe I’ll just leave it at that for the moment. Thanks.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thanks, Harley, for your two questions. I agree with you. Given the share price reaction, that’s probably the two hot topics of the day. Let me come back a little bit on what we said in Forward 2026. You remember when we published Forward 2026 in September 2023, we mentioned that it was a plan where our expectation was capital generation in terms of solvency ratio of one to two points per year. That’s the guidance, and we reiterate the guidance. Now, let’s look a little bit at the seasonality of the evolution of the solvency ratio during the year. The one-month renewal on the P&C side are booked in the V&B in Q4 and in Q1. The April renewal are booked in Q1. The June-July renewal are booked in Q2. We don’t have in Q3 renewal on the P&C side. It’s a low quarter. It’s a seasonality effect.

It’s a low quarter on the P&C V&B in the solvency ratio. Let’s look at what is happening on the capital deployment side. On the capital deployment side, we deploy each quarter the same amount. Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. There is no seasonality in the deployment of the capital in the solvency ratio quarter after quarter, and we adjust at the end of the year with the full year run, the full capital deployment over the year. That’s basically the dynamic of the solvency ratio for a given year. Now, let’s look at what is happening in Q3 and over the first nine months. We started 2025 with a solvency ratio 31st of December 2024 at 210. We were at 212 at Q1. You could expect, given what I said, that the solvency ratio should have increased in Q2. In Q2, we were at 210.

If you remember the call end of July, and if you look as well at the work of the economic value in Q2, we mentioned during the call that Q2 was affected by a significant weakening of the dollar against the euro, which is our consolidation currency. On top of it, which was historical, it was also a strengthening of the euro versus all the currency we model in the internal model. I mentioned it. It’s a couple of points of impact in Q2 due to market variance. That’s the point we are missing today, but they were already there. The solvency ratio slightly decreased in Q2, where the expectation is still an increase in Q2. The fact that versus Q2, versus Q3, we don’t create a lot of capital is expected. Now, what is happening in Q3? Let’s look in detail.

On the P&C side, we have a low V&B due to a very low amount of renewal. We have, of course, the good CAT ratio, but we have. The higher attritional ratio this quarter linked to those small and mid-sized events I mentioned during my speech. We still accrue the dividend of last year on a quarterly basis. That’s two points. The good news is that the market variance impact in Q3 is under control. We made a lot of progress on ALM during the summer, especially by additional edge on the dollar. We have the early refinancing of the debt, which brings three points of solvency, and we have a one-off impact of minus one point, which is linked to restructuring of internal retrocession between one subsidiary and the mother company. We have the work, but again, look at the first nine months, the guidance of Forward 2026.

What is missing today is not linked to Q3, it is the market impact of Q2 that we disclose at the end of July. You had a second question, I think, on the buffer strategy.

To the extent to which the, I mean, thank you for the first response, but I’m just wondering, does the quantum of the buffer build impact the OCG? If you hadn’t built the buffers to the extent that you have done this year, would OCG have been higher? I guess more fundamentally, why is OCG on a normalized basis as low as it is, one to two points?

Let me re-explain. What we said in the past. We have prudence in the bell, under IFRS and under Solvency II. That’s the prudence in the bell. On top of this prudence, we decided with Thierry Léger, since July 2023, to add P&C buffers. That’s on top of the prudence we have already in the bell. We added those buffers between July and today. You know that we mentioned that at the end of 2024, we were significantly above the target of $300 million. We mentioned today, and that’s in the quote in the press release, that the amount accumulated in Q1, Q2, and Q3 is of the same magnitude as what we did for the entire year 2024. We always mention that those buffers are in the risk adjustment. They are in the risk adjustment.

We confirm that they are in the risk adjustment, and those buffers have no impact on the capital generation.

Thank you, Harley. Operator, can we take the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Michael Hattner, Berenberg.

Thank you very much. The first one is on the attritional. Can you give us a little bit more color? Because the variance, I know you say lots of little ones, but the variance is huge, right? You go from 76 Q3 last year to 79 Q3 this year, and presumably there’s less buffer-building, whatever. If you adjust for that, it’s probably a five-point change or something. It seems a lot. Any insight as to what happened and where it is? We can kind of think, "Ooh, this is where it might not happen," whatever. It’d be very helpful. The other one is a more general question. The word tier one was mentioned, I don’t know, six or seven times. Clearly, it is very important. It’s core to the story. I don’t quite understand what it means.

My guess is it means that you think you’re underrepresented in your client’s wallet in terms of market share and things. I don’t know how you can increase that in a period when prices are falling. It seems quite hard. I’d be really interested in how quickly you could close the gap and how big you see it. Thank you.

Jean-Paul, Executive Team Member, SCOR: Okay. Thank you for your question. I’ll start. This is Jean-Paul. I’ll start with the attritional loss question. This quarter, in Q1, Q2, this year, we’ve had really exceptional attritional losses with very limited man-made losses and very good attritional losses, which allowed for very strong buffer-building. In Q3, we saw the loss activity reverting back to what I would call a normal activity. As François said, it was an accumulation of small to medium-sized losses across both property and casualty. What we’ve decided is to basically take these losses to the P&L, absorb as little as possible in the IBNR, and then revert to the Q4 reserve review to review a level of adequacy on the overall reserving. As François has already mentioned, the preliminary results from the Q4 review show that there is no strengthening needed on our overall attritional losses.

We’re very comfortable with our reserving level where it stands today.

Is there anything unusual about them? Is it like, I don’t know, political risk or something, just to give us a little bit of color, or is it just normal?

No, I’d say it’s normal. What was not normal was the loss activity in Q1, Q2. Here, again, it’s a mixture of different lines of business, not really political risk. As I said, it’s more property and casualty. I’d say it’s back to what I would call a normal level of loss activity. It’s just what you would expect in terms of the fluctuations quarter to quarter.

Thanks, Sam. Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Just adding a point, Michael, if you normalize the combined ratio over the first nine months, you normalize for the CAT effect and for the discount effect. You will find a combined ratio of 87.4%. It’s exactly in line with the guidance of Forward 2026. Remember, we said in Q1, we accelerated the buffer strategy. We said the same thing in Q2. Here, it’s a lower amount, but we still have buffer in Q3. Again, the magnitude is the same over the first nine months. Inside this 87, you have a couple of points of prudence.

Very clear.

The clear underlying performance is evident. Take my statement also on what I see as overseeing the reserve of the group. There is no concern on the reserve at the end of the year as of today.

Thank you. Lovely.

Michael, on your T1 question, it’s true that I’m mentioning it quite a lot. It does help in both a hard and soft market, so it’s independent. I’ll try to explain it in the easiest and quickest way. If you just generally have clients that view you as a tier one, it means they have a genuine and general desire to see us with a higher share on their programs than we have today. That’s a good starting position for us. That means that it should give us a tick better position when it is about choosing where we play, on which programs we play, and where we increase the shares, and on which ones we might not wish to increase the shares. It should give us a tick better opportunity for growth and a tick better opportunity on the combined ratio side. That’s what you are saying.

It’s like a choker card that we have and we intend to play. I’m sure this is going to last for multiple years.

Brilliant. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. Can we move to the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Andrew Baker, Goldman Sachs.

Great. Thank you for taking my questions. The first on the tax rate. It was very good in the quarter, and you highlighted in the release the ongoing improved profitability of the reinsurance activities under the French tax perimeter. Can you just remind me how we should be thinking about that for Q4 and then, I guess, more medium term, 2026 and 2027? Secondly, on the life and health onerous contracts. I appreciate, again, that this is driven by the increase in the risk adjustment. What led to this? Is this prudence, or is there something going on in a specific line? How should we think about that risk adjustment increase? Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. On the first one, on the tax rate, we start to see in Q3 an improvement in the effective tax rate of the group. I’ve been quite vocal on the topic. We initiated a strategy in 2023. We need to repatriate more taxable profits to France to be in a situation to reactivate losses carry forward we’ve got off balance sheet and to use also the DTA we have activated on the balance sheet. You saw it in the past, already last year. We are well on track in all the restructuring of the group to repatriate more profits. It’s mostly through restructuring of internal retrocession to bring more through quota share assets and profits in Paris. We are going to move, probably at the beginning of the year, re-domiciliate one entity from Ireland to France.

The effect you see today is just a combination of having now a larger base of profits located in France. Then you have a second effect, which is just the excellent performance of the three business activities which bring more profits. You have those two effects. If you look at the tax rate over the first nine months, we are close to 27%. Is it a good indication of the future? What I can tell you is that compared to the 30%, it will improve. I’m French, given discussion at the French Parliament currently on the budget for France in 2026. I prefer to wait a little bit to see what type of budget we will have in France. Let’s see maybe during the call of Q4 if I change the guidance. I confirm it will improve. We are on track.

Again, it’s not yet linked to the consumption or the reactivation of the DTA. It’s just the fact that we have more profits in France, and they are just at the level which is exceptional. On your second question, on onerous contract on life and health, let me tell you a little bit the way we see the performance of this portfolio, and that’s what I said in the introduction, and the way we guided the market during the IRD of last September. We have a year-to-date insurance service result of $334 million. We gave a guidance last December of $400 million per annum, which means we are in line, and we are even slightly above the quarterly guidance accumulated over the first nine months.

I always mention, if you remember what I said during the IRD and in the call after this year, I always mention that the $400 million guidance includes a cautious buffer for contained volatility. This volatility, which is normal given the size of our in-force, could come from the experience variance or could come from loss components, given the size and the geographies of the in-force portfolio. That’s what we see. If you look at the experience variance since the beginning of the year, so Q1, Q2, Q3, it’s close to zero. If you look at the loss component, we have a little bit of noise each quarter, which is on our side within the budget we had in mind when we gave the guidance of $400 million.

The guidance of $400 million in our mind, and I was transparent on this fact, includes a cautious buffer for volatility on experience variance and/or loss component. It is normal, I would say. Keep in mind as well that there is, we commented this a few quarters ago, an asymmetry in the treatment on the expense variance on the CSM and the expense variance on contracts which are already onerous. On onerous, as soon as a contract is onerous, any movement, positive or negative, flows into the P&L. More specifically, what is now happening on loss component this quarter is just slight adjustments on group of contracts which are already onerous, and it’s slight adjustment on the risk adjustment, and also on one client, it’s an adjustment on reserve movements.

On our side, with Thierry, we are really, really, really satisfied with the overall performance of life, coming from the CSM amortization, the risk adjustment release, and the expense variance, and all the volatility on loss components. Last word, the stock of loss components of onerous contract, which we disclosed last year, is unchanged as of today.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Andrew. Can we move to the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Cameron Hossen, JP Morgan.

Hi. Good afternoon. Two questions for me, both from the P&C side. The first one is just, at the beginning of the call, a very kind of strong message from Thierry Léger on discipline, opportunities, and how to avoid kind of pitfalls going forward. Just interested with, I guess, the cycle moving slightly south from where it is now into next year. Does the 4 to 6% revenue target become less important now for SCOR? Just trying to work out, with that market coming down a little bit, more discipline, is 4 to 6% still a priority or not really? The second question is, historically, you’ve been really big users of retrocession, and more recently, you’ve used a lot more other kind of capital relief measures, particularly last year. In terms of the market for those, where do you think those will head into 2026?

Will they come down at the same rate as reinsurance? Will they come down more? What do you think the dynamics will be in that market? Thank you.

Jean-Paul, Executive Team Member, SCOR: Thank you, Cameron. I’ll take these questions. On the outlook and the revenue target, definitely the revenue target is no longer, I’d say, at target for us. It will really depend on market terms and conditions. As Thierry mentioned, we expect a competitive market, especially in the CAT XL area. You have to remember CAT XL represents only 10% to 12% of our overall premium income, and the market itself is coming from a very high price adequacy level. I’d say the decline of that market doesn’t affect the overall pricing level of SCOR as much as it does some other peers. We see competition across all the lines of business, but to a much smaller extent. A large proportion of our portfolio, over 70%, is on a proportional basis, where it’s more the driver of the insurance prices that drives the price evolutions.

On your second question regarding retro, we do expect the retro market to also be competitive. The question as to whether it would be more or less competitive than the reinsurance is a little bit early to tell. We do see on the retro side, even though there’s a smaller number of players, all those players have appetite to grow more in terms of limit deployed, as well as in terms of different lines of business they want to write. We do expect to have opportunities to optimize our retro program again this year.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, Cameron. Can we move to the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Shanti Kang, Bank of America.

Hi. Yeah, thanks for taking my question. I just had two. One is on P&C. I was just looking at the discount rate for 3Q. That’s increased to 8.4%. We had lower CATs in the quarter, so I’m a bit confused why that’s increased. It’s also higher year-on-year, and last year we had a hurricane in Q3. Maybe it’s on the man-made losses. I’m not sure, but just information on that would be helpful. On life and health, on that new business CSM target, what’s the execution risk to that $400 million? Can you tell us a bit more about the pipeline and your new business CSM numbers just to get us a bit more comfortable about meeting the guidance given the softness today? Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thank you, Shanti. I will take the first question, and Philippe Riday will take the second one. On the P&C discount, we have a discount rate at 8.2% in Q3 compared to the guidance of 6% to 7%. If you remember, it was 6.3% in Q2. Here, it’s just the impact of those small, mid-size man-made losses that we see in the quarter, which affect mechanically the discount. It’s just a mechanical effect of the man-made losses of Q3.

Thank you. On your second question, I would say this type of fluctuation is normal. The longevity and financial solution deals are lumpy by nature, and we remain confident that with our guidance, as previously given, which was $400 million, actually for next year, and if I refer to previous communication, we expected a more significant drop in protection as we redress the portfolio. The delivery of the protection this year is actually ahead of our expectations. In terms of financial solutions, the pipeline is growing, but I would say it’s fair to say that the execution takes longer, and you could say maybe it’s a bit delayed. Whereas on the longevity side, our pipeline is robust, both in the short and the medium term, and that pipeline is global in nature, not restricted to the United Kingdom. Hopefully that answers your question.

Thanks. Sorry, just on that, you implemented some profitability thresholds, I think, in December 2024. How is that emerging in the life and health side? Are you seeing any pushback? Could that have really attributed to some of the softness that we’ve seen today?

No, it’s rather the opposite, right? We expected to lose a lot more business with these rates increase, and we were able to retain more of the business at these increased rates. That’s why I said in terms of protection that we are ahead of our expectations.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Shanti. Can we move to the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Chris Avella, Autonomous Research.

Good afternoon. Just a couple of quick questions for me. Firstly, just on the good old subject of the buffer. You’re now, it must be getting towards sort of three quarters of the P&C reserves result, which is obviously a lot higher than what you were originally anticipating. I guess part A of the question is, how much more scope do you think there is to move this higher? Secondly, I think, given the sort of initial comments around the market environment as things stand currently, do you think that the industry profitability is enough to support further buffer build? Second question, just wanted to actually come back to the previous one on discounting. I agree, I’m also a little bit confused by this.

I would have thought that this would be more to do with longer tail or longer duration claims rather than the sort of small and mid-sized man-made that you were talking about, unless I’m mixing those two up. Just wondering if you could help to clear that up for me as well, please. Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Hi, Chris. On your first question, on what we can do in the future, we’re clear. Since January 1, 2025, with Thierry, we build opportunistically buffer. Jean-Paul mentioned that the level of the attritional loss and commission ratio was exceptionally good in Q1 and Q2. We mentioned that we accelerated the buffer strategy. We still have room of maneuver in Q3 to put a smaller amount of buffer. Is it the end? No. Should you see this systematically each quarter? No. You can expect over the next few quarters and years with the softening of the P&C market, of course, probably we will reduce the pace of implementation or we will find less and less opportunities to build buffer. That’s not for tomorrow. That’s not for tomorrow. We have probably still a few quarters in front of us with still excellent margin on the P&C side.

On the second question on the discount rate, I mentioned it’s small and mid-size man-made losses. You’re right. If there is an impact on the discount, it means that long-dated claims, so it’s related to casualty.

Okay, thank you. Just on that sort of casualty point, can you give a little bit more color as to if there’s any particular lines of business within casualty that those claims have materialized?

Jean-Paul, Executive Team Member, SCOR: Yeah, Chris, Jean-Paul. It’s a little bit, I’d say, random. It’s GL on the treaty side, on the SBS side. It’s some financial lines, again, on the treaty and SBS side. There’s no particular trend. As François said, it’s more underwriting years that date back three, four years, and therefore have an impact on the discount rate.

You mentioned it. I mean, we could have the choice to absorb those man-made losses in Q3 through ABNR. We did not, so we don’t do it. The bad news is in the attritional, and we wait for the outcome of the P&C reserve review in Q4. You can imagine that we are well advanced in this review. My statement on the fact that we should not expect impact on the P&C reserve at the end of the year includes, of course, the review of the casualty book. I confirm what Jean-Paul is saying. There is no trend identified as of today.

Okay, good to hear. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chris. Can we move to the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Ian Pierce, BNP Paribas Exane.

Hi, afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. It’s just coming back to the capital generation point. I understand that you’re saying that the capital generation that you’ve achieved has sort of been in line with the guidance that you gave at the start of the year. I guess in Q3, we’ve had positive experience, particularly in the P&C business. If we just look at CAT relative to expectations, you take out the buffer, which shouldn’t impact the Solvency II numbers, you would think that that would positively contribute to the solvency. The solvency in Q3 should be developing better than what you guided to at the start of the year. I guess the only thing that could offset that is the man-made claims that you’re referring to, but I wouldn’t guess they’re at the same quantum of the level of CAT benefit you’ve had.

I’m just understanding why that positive experience hasn’t come through in the capital generation. I don’t really understand that. If you could try and elaborate on that, that’d be really useful. Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thank you. Thank you, Ian. Capital generation in Q3. If we look at the P&C contribution, we have, as I mentioned, the good news of the CAT, but that’s compensated by the higher attritional ratio. It’s almost not one-for-one, but I would say it’s almost an impact which has the same size, which means the good news is offset by the attritional losses this quarter, and it’s almost a one-for-one impact.

Okay. I mean,

You don’t have the impact of the buffer, of course, in the solvency ratio.

If the man-made is offsetting the net CAT by one-to-one, then that’s implying a $100 million of man-made increase versus expectation in the quarter. I mean, that’s a pretty high number.

If you want more precision when I say, I mean, I said that the capital generation on the P&C side was low. It could be still a little bit positive. The order of magnitude of the man-made losses this quarter offset, in a good portion, the good news on the CAT side.

Okay. Okay.

Thank you, Ian. Can we move to the next question?

Operator: Next question is from Darius Sutkersukas, KBW.

Afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions too, please. You suggested that the pace of the buffer-building in P&C will slow down as the market softens. Is the intention here to limit the soft market pressure to your combined ratio? You see this buffer as a tool to achieve this, and that’s why you’re making such a comment. We shouldn’t essentially expect the sort of opportunistic thing to continue and the benefit to companies’ reserve releases. You will actually manage down how much you’re adding if the market softens. That’s the first question. The second question, just on the life and health. I’m slightly confused. Why have you been making allowance for volatility in your ISR target if you have been conservative in your assumptions in the recent review? Wouldn’t we expect to see positive experience more often than not?

These negatives in both P&L and CSM and the allowance for it are a bit surprising. Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thank you. Thank you, Darius. The first question, if I catch your point, is basically when we are going to use those buffers. The way we see it is really to manage in the future the volatility. It’s not to manage specifically a cycle. Maybe one will be really at the bottom of the soft cycle, but it’s really to manage the volatility of the book. That’s all.

Maybe there was another part of your question, Darius, is the buffer-building. Will the pace come down, right, given the market environment? We very much feel in 2024, in terms of IFRS reporting, we were very much in a very attractive environment. We think we will remain in a very attractive environment next year. We do not foresee necessarily again, it’s opportunistic, so we can never make a prediction. We continue to believe that also next year we should be able to build significant buffers if the results come in as expected.

Your second question on life and health and the way we set the ISR target. That’s true. We did this significant assumption review in 2024. That’s what I said. Given the size of the in-force, given the geographies of the portfolio everywhere in the globe, given the underlying nature of all the existing treaties, we will have some volatility. This volatility, I agree with you, could be negative or could be negative and could be on the experience variance side, or it could be through a loss component and on a nerve contract. We want to be cautious. We want to be cautious. I agree with you, on an average, over a long period of time, this volatility should be around zero, with plus and minuses quarter after quarter, but it should be around zero.

To be on the safe side, and we mention it, to be on the safe side, the $400 million guidance includes a buffer to take into account any residual volatility that could be negative or positive, but we prefer to give a guidance and to under-promise and over-deliver on the guidance.

Thank you. If I understood Thierry correctly, what you’ve done in terms of reserve build-up is for the volatility. In terms of how much you will do going forward, you can very much manage the combined ratio in the soft market.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Darius. Can we move to the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Ivan Bokmat, Barclays.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you very much. I’ve got two questions left. We’ve been talking about the Q4 reserve review for the P&C business. I was just wondering if you can update us on how periodically you would review the life book. Is there a review coming in Q4? Maybe any early findings there? The second question is related to the investment results. I think in Q3, you have flagged some higher real estate amortization during the quarter. Could you give a little bit more color on that, of which portfolios or geographies that might relate to? Do you anticipate any additional charges such as this later? Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thank you, Ivan. On the first question, on the Q4 reserve review, we took an external opinion in 2023, in 2024, with the same actuarial firm, Willis Towers Watson. I remind you that Willis Towers Watson confirmed last year that we have increased the level of prudence compared to 2023. We have been sharing this, and I like to listen to the feedback of our investors on the topic. I’m not sure that bringing such a review each year will be useful. We are listening with Thierry to recommendations or questions or suggestions from investors or from you as analysts. Let’s see the periodicity, but probably every two, three years should be the good cycle. On your second question, on the investment portfolio, that’s true that we have mentioned an impairment on the real estate assets. It’s a property asset that we own in France.

We decided to significantly invest and to do some CapEx to restructure this building. First, when you invest, you are first to impair the building. Then we are going to deploy the CapEx, and one day we are going to leave it and sell it with a gain. We are in the cycle of real estate, and the DNA of the team is really what we call a value add. We like to restructure assets, and that’s one we have, and we impair it. It’s $12 million. It’s not a trend. It’s not something that just because we invest to value this asset, we have to impair it a little bit before we start the renovation and the restructuring works.

To follow up on this and broaden the question a little bit.

If you look at the line real estate amortization and impairment, you have the impairment. It’s almost $12 million this quarter. I would say normal amortization, that’s the amortization compared to the historical value. The amortized costs flow into the P&L, and roughly it’s a budget of $5 million, $6 million per quarter.

Okay. Thank you. Maybe if I could follow up on this question. More broadly, if you can talk about the private assets that you hold, is there anything that makes you concerned in the current environment?

I mean, you know that we have a positioning of the investment portfolio, which is highly defensive. The fixed income portfolio has a very high quality. The average rating is A-minus. Our exposure to private debt, private assets, is fairly limited. We disclose it every quarter. If I take the collapse of First Brands and Tricolor a few weeks ago, it was an indirect exposure on the investment side of $0.2 million, so it’s nothing. It’s a single low-digit number on the credit and surety side. We don’t change anything. I mean, we don’t have any concerns. We don’t change anything on the asset allocation. Just remind you, since I mentioned all the discussion we have at the French Parliament on the budget for 2026, I remind everyone that we have zero exposure at all to French ratings.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ivan. Can we move to the next question, please?

Operator: Next question is from Will Hartcastle, UBS.

Oh, hi there. Just two. The first one’s clarification, really. I’m trying to understand the man-made. There’s been a couple of confusing messages. You said clearly it was above budget, I think, in Q3. Where is it year to date? I’m trying to understand just how much better than a budgeted type level H1 was. The second question is just on P&C revenue. I think I just heard you say that 4 to 6% revenue CAGR in P&C target no longer stands. Is that right? Have you officially walked away from that? Thanks.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thanks, Will. I will take the first question and Jean-Paul, the second one. I mentioned it normalized for CAT and discount. The normalized combined ratio would stand at 87.4%. I mentioned that inside you have a significant amount of buffer. It’s a couple of points. Do not forget that the combined ratio published or normalized includes a significant amount of buffer, so it’s included. In the attritional ratio over the first nine months of 79.2%. Hopefully, that reassures you that, again, the level of man-made we’ve seen year to date has been very low. Q1, Q2 was very low. Q3 is normal. When you average it across the nine months, it’s low. In terms of P&C revenue, what I meant is we don’t change the guidance. For us, the 4 to 6% is more an outcome than an objective.

We’re not asking the teams to position the portfolio in such a way that we can absolutely meet this target. If the terms and conditions, we find them satisfactory and there’s different price adequacy, we’re ready to deploy capital and grow the book. If price deteriorates to a level that we think they’re no longer price adequate, we’re going to position the portfolio more defensively, regardless of the guidance we’ve been given on revenue growth.

Thank you, Will. With this, we’re going to take the last question of the call. Thank you.

Operator: The last question is from Vinny Malhotra, Mediobanca.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you. Almost all my questions have been answered. Thank you for the clarification on the revenue growth. Just on the fact that you did grow U.S. CAT in July, I’m just wondering whether, with what you know now, you are still happy with that decision to have grown. The reason I’m asking is, obviously, you talked about CAT XL being the area where there’s most concern, which is only 10% of the book, but still, your more cautious message on pricing—was it still considering this CAT action you took? Also, one more question if I can follow up on. I think somewhere in the call, you talked about U.S. casualty with core business solutions having some larger claims. Is that the same thing that you’re talking about, this attritional man-made being normalized, or was it something else? Thank you.

François de Varenne, Deputy CEO and Group CFO, SCOR: Thank you, Vinny. On the U.S. CAT, we definitely don’t regret our decision to increase our risk capital in U.S. CAT. You’re right that we expect the prices to come down at 1.1 and the market to be competitive. You have to remember the price adequacy of U.S. CAT currently is very high. You can see, despite the wildfires at the beginning of the year, the tornado activity throughout the year, the profitability of that portfolio remains extremely good. Our position is very much underweight in that market compared, for example, to Europe or to Asia. We think there’s opportunities for us to grow. In the renewal discussions right now, the discussions seem to focus primarily on price. Terms and conditions are remaining stable. Attachment points are remaining stable. It’s just a question of price.

Given the level of price adequacy where we stand, I think we still view that market as attractive and producing very good returns. On your question on U.S. casualty and SBS, I’d say it’s normal activity. We don’t see any concerns there. It’s more prior underwriting years where losses have developed to a level that we took them to the P&L. Our book today on SBS is very small. We continue to take a cautious look at the U.S. casualty market overall, both on the treaty side and on the SBS side. We’re following the market. The price increases on the insurance side are keeping up with loss trend, for example, in GL. The question is, is the price adequacy adequate?

In our view, you probably need further years of similar price increases and no acceleration of the loss trend for it to be a price adequacy that meets our return on equity targets. We’re remaining very cautious today.

Were the claims not in treaty or P&C, but only in SBS?

No, no. There were a few claims on the treaty side, a few claims on the SBS side.

Okay, thank you.

Operator: Gentlemen, we have no more questions registered at this time.

Okay. Thank you all for attending this conference call today. Our team remains available if you’ve got any follow-up questions. Give us a call. With this, I’m wishing you a good weekend. The Q4 2025 results for SCOR will be reported at the beginning of March on the 4th with a call, as usual, at 2:00 P.M. Wishing you a good weekend, all. Thank you.

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