A.M. Best Affirms and Assigns Ratings to Optimum Insurance and Its Subsidiary; Optimum West and Optimum General.OLDWICK, N.J. -- A.M. Best Co. has affirmed 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 B- (Fair) 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 "bb-" to Optimum Insurance Company (Optimum Insurance) and its wholly owned subsidiary Wholly Owned Subsidiary A subsidiary whose parent company owns 100% of its common stock. Notes: In other words, the parent company owns the company outright and there are no minority owners. , Optimum Farm Insurance Inc (Optimum Farm) (both of Montreal Of Montreal is an American indie pop band formed in Athens, Georgia, fronted by Kevin Barnes. It was among the second wave of groups to emerge from The Elephant 6 Recording Company. , Canada). A.M. Best has also upgraded the FSR to B- (Fair) from C++ (Marginal) and assigned an ICR of "bb-" to Optimum West Insurance Company (Optimum West) (Vancouver, Canada). In addition, A.M. Best has assigned an ICR of "ccc+" to Optimum General Inc. (Montreal, Canada) (TSX TSX Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE before April, 2002) TSX Transfer from Stack Pointer to Index TSX True Space Extension :OGI OGI Oregon Graduate Institute OGI Office of Geographic Information OGI Ola Grimsby Institute OGI Overlapping Global Interval .A). The outlook for all ratings is stable. The rating affirmations reflect Optimum Insurance's elevated underwriting leverage and historically adverse operating performance. These negative rating factors are partially offset by Optimum Insurance's improved underwriting results in recent years, a conservative investment profile and favorable reserve development. Optimum Farm maintains favorable underwriting leverage measures and positive operating results. Optimum West, which now carries the group ratings, has been impacted by adverse prior year underwriting results that have strained its profitability. The adverse results were mainly due to reserve strengthening from prior accident years and an unfavorable ruling concerning leaky condominiums in British Columbia. In recent years, management has focused on improving profitability through stricter underwriting guidelines, better risk selection and cancellation of unprofitable brokers. Indications are favorable as Optimum West has reported improvement in underwriting performance, operating earnings Operating Earnings Profits after subtracting expenses such as marketing, cost of goods sold, administration and general operating costs from revenue. Notes: Tax and interest expenses are not subtracted - operating earnings are synonymous with EBIT (earnings before and reserve development. The ratings for Optimum West also consider the strategic role it plays in the Optimum family as well as the financial support and flexibility it is afforded as a member of Optimum General Inc. For Best's Ratings, 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 industries, including the banking and insurance sectors. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. |
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