When Scott Egan (pictured) took the helm at SiriusPoint three years ago, the company was facing significant challenges. Fast forward to 2025, and SiriusPoint’s transformation is evident – not just in its share price, but in its renewed sense of discipline, focus, and strategic clarity.
Egan is candid about the difficulties of the early days. “The toughest decisions are always the ones that impact people,” he reflected. “You can strategize on a page, but in real life it affects people… those are always the ones that give me the sleepless nights, and they absolutely should.” Whether it was closing a branch or exiting a business line, Egan emphasizes that the human impact of restructuring weighed heavily on him.
Despite the challenges, SiriusPoint’s progress is clear. “When I joined, the share price was $4 and something. Today we are $19. So I think we can say lots of tough decisions, very few regrets, always worry about the people impact. But I think we can say a job well done so far. But more to go.”
Reflecting on the lessons learned, Egan highlighted the importance of decisiveness and communication. “For different stages of the journey, you need different capabilities and precision,” he said. “At the beginning, the company was in a tight spot. We could have spent six months agonising over the perfect strategy, but in truth, good enough was good enough, and that’s what we did. We set our direction, and the most important part was that we communicated well with our employees. Even with the tough decisions, we stood up and talked to them about what we were doing and why.”
A key part of SiriusPoint’s culture is the “1%” mindset – a philosophy borrowed from sports. “Strategy is important, but actually, getting people to march behind you and having a mindset… is really what the 1% is all about. It’s the accumulation of lots of little things that make a difference rather than always trying to find the silver bullet. If you have 500 little improvements every day, then that results in a big improvement. That’s the culture and the mindset that we have.”
This mindset has contributed to a more engaged and resilient workforce, with employees encouraged to take ownership of incremental improvements and to communicate openly about challenges and successes.
SiriusPoint’s underwriting strategy has evolved, but Egan is quick to clarify misconceptions. “We haven’t moved away from property cat risk,” he said. “We actually took ourselves out of one part of the market… but we are a very big property cat reinsurer in the US. What we don’t do is much outside the US now.”
The company’s philosophy centers on building a lower volatility portfolio. “Lower volatility portfolios tend to create the best value for shareholders,” Egan said. “We’re not afraid to take risk, but we manage our risk, individual risk, very carefully and we manage our portfolio very carefully. We try and make sure that we don’t have too many correlated risks and we diversify by geography, by product, by risk, etc. If we can do that well, we can create a lower volatility portfolio, and that drives the best shareholder value.”
Recent results bear this out. “Our half year results delivered a 15.4% return despite having California wildfires and two airline crashes in the first half of the year,” said Egan. “We’re beginning to show that our portfolio is diversified and can still deliver returns. Our message for shareholders and investors is we will deliver a 12% to 15% return across the cycle, and that means we don’t do boom, bust, boom, bust. We work to operate within that range.”
This approach aligns with broader 2024-2025 industry trends, as reinsurers seek to balance growth with capital discipline in a market where volatility and correlation risks are top of mind.
SiriusPoint’s approach to managing general agents (MGAs) has also shifted. “When I first came, we had lots of investments in MGAs – 36, I think. The reason why we didn’t want to have that is because it takes an awful lot of energy and effort to manage 36 different investments,” Egan explained. “From the outside in, we looked more like a venture capitalist than an insurance company.”
Today, SiriusPoint is focused on building long-term, strategic MGA partnerships – without necessarily taking equity stakes. “We are absolutely aligned as a company to the MGA program distribution channel, but you don’t have to have equity stakes to support them in distribution,” he said. “We’ve been incredibly successful over the past 18 months to two years in bringing on new MGA partnerships. We actually won an award in America this year as the US program insurer of the year, so we were very proud of that.”
Program business is now central to SiriusPoint’s strategy. “If you include reinsurance, program business probably makes up about 80% of the overall company portfolio. We do still own equity stakes in MGAs – probably about 19 now. By far our most important one is IMG, a travel MGA based in Indianapolis that we own 100% of. That business is almost a billion of GWP.”
This focus on deeper, more strategic partnerships has helped SiriusPoint streamline operations and deliver more consistent results, a trend echoed by other leading reinsurers in 2024-2025.
With the reinsurance market seeing increased competition and changing pricing dynamics, Egan is clear about SiriusPoint’s priorities. “I hope the market stays disciplined. The reinsurance sector has made money in two out of the last five years, and if you extended it beyond that, the stats don’t get any better. I hope that having fought so hard to correct the pricing, we don’t give it all away by doing silly things on rates.”
Discipline is non-negotiable. “We want to be competitive but we want to make sure that the risk-reward price triangle is fair both for our customers and for us. If we can’t see good pricing for the risk that we’re taking, then ultimately we would have to walk away. Fortunately, we’ve got some very long-standing relationships right across our business. Our business is a relationship model, and we’ve got some very loyal customers.”
This emphasis on discipline and long-term relationships is particularly relevant as the market softens in 2025 and reinsurers face pressure to maintain profitability while supporting clients through changing conditions.
As SiriusPoint looks to 2026 and beyond, Egan sees opportunity – but also the need for continued discipline. “The group has been growing double digit percentages for the last five quarters. Our customers are telling us they want to buy more of our products and services. We feel excited about closing out 2025 and about 2026 and the prospects. But we’re not pretending that market conditions aren’t softening. We want to be competitive for our customers, but ultimately, we’ll stay disciplined.”
This forward-looking approach - balancing growth with risk management – positions SiriusPoint to navigate the next phase of the cycle with confidence.
Asked for advice to other leaders navigating transformation, Egan is humble but direct. “Put people at the heart of every decision, communicate well, and be decisive. Those are the things that if I look back on, I would say they’re good. But I’m sure they don’t need my advice – there are some pretty intelligent and capable people out there.”
