Re/Insurers rating downgrades: it’s not just about the capital! For almost all cedants and brokers the “financial strength” rating of their reinsurers remains a fundamental part of their selection process. For reinsurers, achieving and maintaining a rating at the desired level is mission critical. Many cedants themselves
Read more →You and your Rating Agency – Top Tips In an update to our article first published in 2013 (“The Litmus First XI – Top Tips for Managing the Relationship with your Rating Agency”), we share some further insights we have gained over the last four years.
Read more →Fail to prepare…prepare to fail: Best’s new criteria will mean rating upgrades and downgrades. One of the lessons I learned when I moved into the world of ratings having been a broker was that the market only really focuses on ratings when the bad news comes out.
Read more →Core elements of difference in A.M. Best and S&P rating criteria On 10 March 2016 A.M. Best published its draft insurance rating criteria for public comment. The initial comment period closed on 30 June and updated criteria reflecting Best’s reactions to the comments, and a further comment period, are expected later this year, with the stated goal to release and implement the final criteria in early to
Read more →The science of corporate ‘enterprise’ risk management for insurers has developed exponentially over the last 10 years – from the silo based approach at the turn of the century, to the position today where even smaller re/insurers are considering the appointment of a CRO, a role that
Read more →Although effectively communicating the output is likely to be critical for European re/insurers Periodically we hear the comment that the required publication by EU domiciled re/insurers of details on their financial health under Solvency II (SII) may remove market demand to see re/insurer ratings. Here at Litmus, we seriously doubt that. Fundamentally the information that will be disclosed under SII will have to be interpreted by the user in order
Read more →Recently Fitch Ratings (Fitch) released a paper arguing that rating users and regulators should treat an “A-“ A.M. Best (Best) Financial Strength Rating (FSR) as equivalent to a “BBB” Fitch Insurer Financial Strength (IFS) rating, and to the “BBB” ratings of the other main Credit Rating Agencies (CRA’s)
Read more →A message for the rating agencies One of the key elements of the rating process is ‘competitive position’, which for reinsurers refers to their ability to attract and retain business in a tough market place. The rating agencies understandably tend to believe that ‘pricing power’ is vital
Read more →On the 21st November S&P moved its ‘A+’ rating for SCOR’s core carriers to a positive outlook. A return to the ‘AA’ range would highlight the remarkable transformation of the group’s profile from the difficult position it found itself in a decade ago. SCOR’s path to recovery
Read more →During the summer both A.M. Best and Fitch assigned ‘positive’ outlooks to their current Lloyd’s market ratings. S&P did so last year. Translating the A.M. Best rating scale to the one used by S&P and Fitch this means that Lloyd’s is rated ‘A+’ with a positive outlook
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