Underwriting Quality Has Lacked at Scor, and It Is Trying to Extract Improvements Through Expenses

Scor is a large reinsurance company headquartered in Paris. It operates in over 100 countries, serving many clients from offices worldwide that are connected through a backbone network of application, data, and exchange systems. This allows local access to centralized risk analysis, underwriting or pricing databases, and at the same time allowing information on local market conditions to be shared among the group’s worldwide offices. In addition, through regular exchanges of personnel between group headquarters in Paris and its non-French subsidiaries and branch offices, the group encourages professional development and training across its various geographic markets and lines of business. We think in the case of Scor, investments in risk-analysis, underwriting, and pricing haven’t been good for shareholders. That is because returns on equity have remained anemic.