Leading European reinsurers on track to meet 2025 targets

According to Fitch Ratings, Europe's leading reinsurers, namely Munich Re, Swiss Re, Hannover Re and SCOR, are well on track to achieve their 2025 financial targets.

The first quarter of 2025 saw these groups post resilient results, despite the California wildfires, which heavily impacted their property-casualty (P&C) operations.

The wildfires, which devastated parts of Los Angeles earlier this year, cost all four European reinsurers over 2.5 billion USD. Consequently, their overall combined (P&C) ratio deteriorated from 82.4% at end-March 2024 to 87.2% a year later.

Despite these losses, the non-life segment's performance remains solid. Good P&C results coupled with stable investment income, have supported the reinsurers’ quarterly net profits.

This good performance is also attributable to strong capitalization and adequate reserves, reinforced by favorable market conditions.

In light of these factors, all four groups are maintaining their profit forecasts for the 2025 financial year. Munich Re, Swiss Re and Hannover Re are projecting net profits of 6 billion EUR (6.5 billion USD), 4.4 billion USD and 2.4 billion EUR (2.6 billion USD) respectively. For its part, France's SCOR is expecting annual growth of 9% in its economic value.