A.M. Best Affirms and Assigns Ratings to BF&M Limited and Its Affiliates.OLDWICK, N.J. -- A.M. Best Co. has affirmed af·firm v. af·firmed, af·firm·ing, af·firms v.tr. 1. To declare positively or firmly; maintain to be true. 2. To support or uphold the validity of; confirm. v.intr. the financial strength rating (FSR (Free System Resource) In Windows 3.x, the amount of unused memory in various 64K blocks reserved for managing current applications. Every open window takes some space in this area. See Windows memory limitation. ) of A (Excellent) and assigned issuer credit ratings (ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition or Image Character Recognition) The machine recognition of hand-printed characters as well as machine printing that is difficult to recognize. ) of "a" to BF&M Limited (BF&M) (Hamilton, Bermuda) and its operating affiliates. The outlook for all ratings is stable. (See below for a detailed listing of the companies and ratings.) The ratings recognize BF&M's consistent operating performance, long-standing participation in life and non-life insurance in Bermuda, strong capitalization capitalization n. 1) the act of counting anticipated earnings and expenses as capital assets (property, equipment, fixtures) for accounting purposes. 2) the amount of anticipated net earnings which hypothetically can be used for conversion into capital assets. , experienced and focused management, as well as its recent efforts to diversify diversify To acquire a variety of assets that do not tend to change in value at the same time. To diversify a securities portfolio is to purchase different types of securities in different companies in unrelated industries. its book of business outside of Bermuda. Over the last several years, operating performance has been consistently excellent with profit from operations (excluding extraordinary items) at or above a return on equity of 14%. Operations include property/casualty, life, health and pensions in both the retail and commercial sectors. In 2006, premium for the property/casualty business increased markedly due to the prior year majority share (51%) purchase of the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited (ICBL ICBL International Campaign to Ban Landmines ICBL Irish Credit Bureau LTD ). This action not only greatly increased BF&M's property/casualty premium volume (by 100% on a gross basis) with a seasoned book of business, but simultaneously diversified its exposure to hurricanes. At the same time, Bermuda International Insurance Services Limited was created to market life insurance solutions to affluent individuals on a global basis, thus, broadening the group's life insurance base. These advantages are partially offset by BF&M's concentrated book of business in the insular insular /in·su·lar/ (-sdbobr-ler) pertaining to the insula or to an island, as the islands of Langerhans. in·su·lar adj. Of or being an isolated tissue or island of tissue. and mature Bermudian market, which because of its size, constrains the company's ability to grow its business domestically with existing products and services. Additionally the ratings are affected by the group's property business, which is subject to hurricane risk. The rating outlook is supported by BF&M's consistently strong operating performance, excellent capital position and strong market presence. The FSR of A (Excellent) has been affirmed and the ICRs of "a" have been assigned to BF&M Limited and its following operating affiliates: * BF&M General Insurance Company Limited * BF&M Life Insurance Company Limited Founded in 1899, A.M. Best Company is a full-service credit rating organization dedicated to serving the financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. industries, including the banking and insurance sectors. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. |
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