(AOF) – Thierry Léger is leaving his position as head of underwriting for the Swiss Re group, which he has held since September 2020. The board of directors of Scor, on the proposal of the appointments committee, has unanimously decided to appoint him as general manager. He will take up his duties on May 1, 2023. Thierry Léger has twenty-five years of experience in the reinsurance sector, with leading responsibilities.
Its skills cover both life reinsurance, damage and liability reinsurance as well as alternative reinsurance.
The Board of Directors is convinced that Thierry Léger has all the professional skills and managerial qualities required to become Chief Executive Officer of Scor.
The board of directors will propose to the general assembly of 2023 to elect Thierry Léger administrator of the group.
François de Varenne, member of the Executive Committee in charge of Investments, Technologies, Budget, Transformation and Corporate Finance for the Group, is appointed with immediate effect as interim Chief Executive Officer of Scor until he takes office by Thierry Leger.
The latter is responsible for developing a new engaging and ambitious strategic plan for Scor, the orientations and main axes of which he will outline at the 2023 general meeting. His mission will be to enable Scor to consolidate its place in the very first circle of global reinsurers.
Denis Kessler, Chairman of Scor, declared: “On the proposal of the Appointments Committee, the Board of Directors has unanimously decided to entrust the general management of the group to Thierry Léger, a confirmed reinsurer, experienced, perfectly mastering both both life reinsurance and non-life reinsurance.Having exercised top-level responsibilities within a major global reinsurance company, he has all the skills required to lead the Scor group by forging a new strategic vision, while by following an underwriting policy entirely based on technical profitability.”
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Key points
– Fourth largest reinsurer in the world, born in 1970, leader in the American life reinsurance market with a third of the market share;
– Very safe risk profile: the most geographically diversified reinsurer and fair distribution between life reinsurance under the Scor Global Life brand (more than half of premiums) and non-life reinsurance under the Scor PC brand;
– Gross premiums of €17.6 billion and successful diversification in asset management with a portfolio of €20.3 billion, 8/10ths invested in bonds;
– Business model organized into 3 autonomous management “hubs” (Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA), with underwriting and claims management depending on the life and non-life divisions;
– Open capital, the first shareholders being Covea (8.44%) ahead of employees (4.60%), Denis Kessler being non-executive chairman, until 2022, of the 16-member board of directors and Laurent Rousseau director general ;
– Exceptionally strong financial position, with debt rated AA, shareholders’ equity of €5.5 billion, a debt ratio of 30.6% and a solvency ratio of 240%.
Challenges
– Before the launch of a new plan presented on November 9, strategy to reorganize the insurance portfolio at the expense of the natural catastrophe sector, increase to 10% of valuable assets, such as corporate loans and reduction of liquidity in the portfolio investments;
– Innovation strategy aimed at preventing the arrival of new competition, technologies linked to artificial intelligence making the prediction and probability work of insurers accessible to other players, hence the use of acquisition, processing and security of data and the integration of artificial intelligence in reinsurance operations / the launch of the hELIOS platform and the partnership with start-ups and Insurtech / the use of public clouds / €250 million investments in technologies;
– Environmental strategy at the heart of the strategy, reinsurers being very exposed to climate risks: CO2-neutral investment portfolio in 2050 / support for research on climate risks / creation of specific offers -FEEL, BAM or VITAE- in life reinsurance / use of carbon credits and launch of a “green” credit facility;
– Reduction of the level of probable maximum loss to 21% for the year 2022, operated during renewals in property and casualty reinsurance on June 1 and July 1 and increase in the reinvestment rate to 4.1% at the end of June.
Challenges
– Sensitivity to natural disasters, and to major industrial, financial and cybersecurity disasters in developed countries and to the euro against dollar and pound sterling parity, the currencies in which most of the revenue is denominated;
– Change in net book value per share, €31.21 per share at the end of June;
– Impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian war, natural disasters and drought in Brazil: net loss in 1
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semester, hence a complete review of the portfolio with a 50% reduction in agricultural exposure in 2023;
– After an 8.3% increase in gross written premiums and a deterioration in financial figures as of June 30, active management of reserves, maintenance of a short duration of assets in the portfolio and search for opportunities, particularly in health.
A strong development momentum for French life insurance
The growth of life insurance continues over the months. Over the first four months of the year, contributions reached 53.7 billion euros, a level not seen for more than ten years. At 10.5 billion euros, net inflows also returned to their highest level since 2011 over a similar period. In the end, at the end of April 2022, outstanding life insurance contracts reached 1.847 billion euros, up 1.1% over one year. These good performances are partly linked to the growing success of the PER (Retirement Savings Plan). Since the start of 2022, PERs marketed by an insurer have posted 592,000 additional policyholders and 9.3 billion euros in payments. At the end of April 2022, 3.2 million policyholders held a PER, which represented an outstanding amount of 39 billion euros. Without taking transfers into account, 87% of new holders of a PER (at the end of December 2021) had taken it out with an insurer.