SCOR Notes Success of Korean Renewals

France’s SCOR Group announced the official licensing of its Korean operations this month, and indicated it was very pleased with the rates of renewal of its Korean business.

The company noted that “the treaty renewals of the SCOR Group at April 1st, 2004 in Korea concerned the whole 2003 portfolio.”

SCOR said non-Life premiums in Korea reached 18.2 million euros ($21.65 million) “At constant exchange rates and constant reinsurance structure, this corresponds to a very slight decrease of 2 percent in premiums,” said the announcement. “SCOR has maintained solid commercial relationships with the main Korean cedents,” it added; also noting that “catastrophe premium rates in Korea have been significantly adjusted upward: from 25 percent to 75 percent depending on the treaties.”

The bulk of the portfolio concerns short-tail risks: property damage represents almost the whole of the Korean portfolio. The share of non-proportional treaties in the portfolio of SCOR in Korea increased from 12 percent to 23 percent. Underwriting conditions are in line with the profitability objectives set out by the Group.

SCOR said that the license, obtained on April 16th, 2004 from the Financial Services Committee of South Korea, would “permit the Korean branch of its SCOR Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. subsidiary to underwrite Life reinsurance and Non-Life reinsurance business in South Korea.”

SCOR Chairman Denis Kessler commented: “The SCOR Group is pursuing its strategic objective of growing in Asia. This license in South Korea will help us along this path and will lead the Asian market to represent an increasing portion of the global activity of the Group. The creation of this branch in Korea will consolidate the position of the Group by allowing it to provide locally high value-added services to its clients, and will allow it to continue to build its business in this high-growth market under better conditions. I would like to thank the South Korean authorities for the granting of this license to the SCOR Group.”