Knock-on effects of Iran war worry Scor more than immediate impact

The obvious impacts of the Iran War do not worry French reinsurer Scor as much as secondary effects, such as the impending agriculture crisis, says its global P&C CEO Jean Paul Conoscente.

Around one third of the world’s seaborne fertiliser trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz. 

It’s the secondary effects of world events, whether it be Covid, the Ukraine war or now the Iran conflict “that really is difficult for us to manage,” said Conoscente. 

Conoscente was speaking as part of a panel on how market dynamics affected the CEO agenda at the Intelligent Insurer Re/Insurance Outlook 2026 on May 12 in New York. Other panellists were Dr Marcus Winter, Munich Re North America CEO P&C Re, and Krysti Adamson, managing director and head of P&C global clients, Swiss Re. The moderator was Oxbow Partners' partner Chris Sandilands.

Winter agreed that although the immediate insurance impacts for the region were sizeable, they were not “catastrophically large” for the industry. 

“Still, there are many effects that come out of that, inflation, oil prices, changing consumer behaviours because of that,” said Winter. 

What is constantly on his mind, said Conoscente, was managing the reinsurance cycle — shrinking in some areas, growing in others — while trying to keep the market happy. 

“As a reinsurer, the first thing we think about is the cycle management... both as an insurer and reinsurer, what’s happening to the cycle,” said Conoscente. “How do we manage this from a profitability perspective, from a growth perspective, and this also the many questions we get from analysts: how does reinsurance manage this cycle?”

Winter said he did not really like the concept of cycle management, while Adamson framed cycle management as inseparable from structural risk connectivity, whether it be climate, supply chains or the macro environment.

“It’s about managing a more correlated, complex world rather than just monitoring a traditional pricing cycle,” Adamson said. “Each individual risk is connected ... we’re seeing all these risks flow through infrastructure, social systems, supply chain... cyclical pressures are magnified by this macro environment... plus extreme weather and secondary perils.”

Meanwhile, Winter had reservations about the growth of “follow-only” syndicates in the London Market which don’t have genuine lead capacity when it comes to writing risk. The human factor remained key. 

“It’s still more about the people business. You have to have the relationships, you have to understand what the clients want to make the right decisions,” he said. “I don’t see that the digital component will change that.”

Not that Winter is resistant to digital technology. He called the latest AI agents “mind blowing” and a “game changer” that help Munich Re to answer questions it could not have answered before. 

Even a few months ago, Winter thought of AI being an “enabler” for around three years and only becoming transformational later. He’s revised his timeline. AI will have transformed the reinsurance business within the next year or two, he said. 

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