A.M. Best Affirms and Assigns Ratings to GUARD Insurance Group Following Its Acquisition by Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings, Ltd.OLDWICK, N.J. -- A.M. Best Co. has affirmed the financial strength ratings (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 GUARD Insurance Group (GUARD) and its members, which consist of AmGUARD Insurance Company (AmGUARD), EastGUARD Insurance Company (EastGUARD), NorGUARD Insurance Company (NorGUARD) and WestGUARD Insurance Company (WestGUARD). The outlook for the FSR is stable, while the outlook assigned to the ICRs is stable. All companies are domiciled dom·i·cile n. 1. A residence; a home. 2. One's legal residence. v. dom·i·ciled, dom·i·cil·ing, dom·i·ciles v.tr. 1. in Wilkes Barre, PA. GUARD recently announced that its acquisition by Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings, Ltd (Clal) has been finalized. Clal is Israel's largest insurance group, with a market share of over 20% in both the life and non-life insurance sectors. Clal is publicly traded on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange. The acquisition of GUARD is Clal's first investment in the insurance industry within the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . The ratings reflect the group's sound capitalization, solid liquidity and generally improving underwriting performance. The group's surplus growth has been achieved through a combination of capital infusions Capital infusion Often refers to the cross-subsidization of divisions within a firm. When one division is not doing well, it might benefit from an infusion of new funds from the more successful divisions. and improved operating profitability in the most recent years stemming from an improved rate environment within its targeted states in earlier years. The ratings also acknowledge the group's improved financial flexibility and access to additional capital from Clal. Partially offsetting these positive rating factors is the historic growth in the group's premium and reserve base, which has outpaced organic surplus growth, and the ongoing areas of adverse loss reserve development in prior accident years, which weakened earnings performance. Although these factors have combined to historically strain the level of capital relative to the ratings, the outlook reflects the commitment of Clal In selling to Clal, GUARD has provided itself with additional financial flexibility through access to committed capital to support planned premium growth and diversification initiatives. For Best's Ratings Best's rating A rating A.M. Best Co. assigns to insurance companies based on the company's ability to meet its obligations to its policyholders. , an overview of the rating process and rating methodologies, please visit www.ambest.com/ratings. 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. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion