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Scor Shs Prov Regpt
7/30/2024
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SCORE Q2 2024 results conference call. Today's conference will be 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'd like to hand the call over to Mr. Thomas Fassad. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to SCORE Q2 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Thomas Fossard, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined on the call today by Thierry Léger, Group CEO, François Dvarin, Group CFO, and Jean-Paul Konechente, CEO of SCORE PNC, as well by other COMEX members. Can I please ask you to consider the disclaimer on page two of the presentation? And now I would like to hand over to Thierry Leger. Thierry, over to you.
Thanks, Thomas, and hello, everyone. Let me start with my four key messages today. First, in P&C, we maintain attractive margins, grow in preferred lines of business, improve diversification, and continue with our reserving discipline started last year. I'm very satisfied with our P&C business, and I see a lot of development potential. Second, in investments, we produce stable and elevated returns with a high-quality fixed income portfolio benefiting from continued high reinvestment rates. Third, in life and health, the Q2 results have been very negatively impacted by an ongoing reserve assumption review. I'm very disappointed by our life and health results and have decided to respond decisively with a three-step plan to restore profitability in a sustainable way. Orr's score has a great franchise, and I'm confident in our ability to overcome the life and health issues and fight back to our forward 2026 path. In terms of numbers, for H1, our two key targets are only partially met at half year. With a solvency ratio of 201%, we remain within our target range of 185 to 220%, despite a 20 percentage point impact from the ongoing life and health reserving assumption reviews. The economic value has reduced from 9.2 to 8.4 billion euros. This is well below our 9% growth target. At SCORE, we drive value through our three key businesses, P&C, life and health, and investments. In P&C, I said it already, the combined ratio for the first six months is at our target level of 87%. The excellent performance of the first six months allowed us to accelerate our reserve buffer building. Moving into the U.S. hurricane season, I remind you that we are very much underweight in our net cat exposures. In life and health, the insurance service result stands at minus 257 million euros for H1, primarily due to the life and health reserving assumptions review impacting Q2 with minus 500 million euros. With this, we now expect our full-year life and health ISR to be well below our target range of 500 to 600 million euros. In investments, the H1 2024 regular income yield is strong at 3.5% at the higher end of our guided range for the full year 2024. François will later provide you with more details on all of these areas. As I said, the solvency ratio remains within the optimal range of 185 to 220%. This was achieved despite a minus 20 percentage point hit from the Life and Health Reserving Assumptions Review and shows the resilience of our balance sheet and our ability to manage the solvency ratio within the target range. The solvency ratio would have been 221%, excluding this impact. supported by strong operating capital generation, notably from the P&C and investment activities over the first half of the year and after taking into account the capital consumption for new business and the dividend accrual. There was also a positive impact for market movements. I remain confident in our ability to manage the solvency ratio within the optimal range of 185 to 220% for the rest of the year and beyond. We are also pleased that S&P have confirmed our A-plus rating and the stable outlook following the capital advocacy assessment test last week. Despite our difficulties, On the life and health side, my strategic priorities for the second half of 2024 remain largely the same. It's first of all about building and capitalizing on our four key strengths. Our excellent client franchise, our strong balance sheet, our diversified business model with BNC, life and health, and investments. And it's based on my confidence in our employees and our technical expertise. We continue to allocate capital strategically to the most profitable and diversifying lines of business. The P&C renewals of the last six months are the best proof of this with strong growth at even higher technical margins thanks to improved diversification. However, in life and health, my priorities have changed and I'm now fully focused on our three-step plan to restore profitability in life and health. More on this in a minute. In P&C, overall, our year-to-date P&C premium is up by almost 16% at unchanged attractive margins, and we continue to improve our diversification, leading to an additional improvement in our combined ratio. This is a testimony to our strong client franchise and our ability to shift business to better performing and better diversifying lines of business. And the momentum continues to be favorable with positive June-July renewals. Our underwriters continue to expand in our preferred lines and key areas of diversification. In specialty lines, we have successfully grown the lines identified as key areas of potential in our Forward 2026 strategy, notably engineering, and marine and energy up by 20%, as well as IDI inherent defect insurance up by more than 15%. Alternative Solutions has more than doubled in size to become a major growth contributor already and with more to come. With recognized expertise in this segment, our Alternative Solutions underwriters continue to receive a high volume of submissions and were also able to proactively propose innovative solutions to our clients. We remained very selective on U.S. casualty dough, with stable premiums on a gross basis. Since the rest of the portfolio grew significantly, the relative size of U.S. casualty continues to reduce, and we are securing more retrocession of U.S. casualty, reducing our net exposures additionally. In what is a slightly more competitive environment, SCORE anticipates a continued disciplined market for the upcoming renewals. I told you already that I was disappointed by the life and health results and that I intend to act quickly in a very determined way. There are multiple root causes that require a very differentiated approach. A lot of our life and health business is in good shape, and we enjoy a top-tier franchise in this segment. We will have to act broadly and surgically at the same time. The board and the management of SCORE are committed to addressing issues early, communicating transparently, and adding fast and acting fast and with determination. We have shown this in P&C. And we will do the same in life and health. There are no sacred cows and I will not rest until our life and health business is back on track. Therefore, I have decided to take over the leadership of life and health and to launch with immediate effect an ambitious three-step plan to restore the profitability in life and health. All steps have been launched simultaneously with no time to lose. Step one is about adjusting the reserve levels to the latest experience and trends. As said already, we act proactively and transparently. This is a deliberate choice of the management and board. The 2024 reserve assumptions review is, of course, still ongoing. Final results will be communicated once the reviews are completed and have gone through proper governance. Step two is about maximizing the value extraction from our reinforced book. 90% of the annual P&L of our life and health business comes directly from the Inforce. It is also where the majority of our life and health capital is allocated to. We will create a more centralized steering of our life and health Inforce business with enhanced KPIs. There are multiple tools available to deliver higher and more stable profits from the Inforce book. Step three is about increasing the diversification and profitability of our life and health new business. We will more proactively steer our business to higher margin and better diversifying products. We will continue to innovate with our clients, but have a stronger emphasis on product design. And finally, we will look at the product mix between mortality, morbidity, and between traditional, structured, and longevity business. I will work closely with our life and health leadership to implement the necessary actions swiftly. The impact of these actions will start to be seen early 2025 at the latest. I have full confidence in our life and health franchise and in our ability to produce higher quality and more stable results going forward. I conclude before handing over to Francois. P&C and investments are performing very well. but I'm disappointed by the life and health results. We have a three-step plan in place to restore profitability in life and health. We have started to take actions and we move fast and in a determined way. We will update you in December on the life and health strategy and the forward 2026 targets and assumptions.
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