A.M. Best Places the Ratings of QBE Insurance Group Limited, Its Subsidiaries and Winterthur U.S. Group Under Review.OLDWICK, N.J. -- A.M. Best Co. has placed the issuer credit rating (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 "bbb+" of QBE Insurance Group Limited (Australia) under review with negative implications. In addition, A.M. Best has placed all 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. ), ICRs and debt ratings of QBE's subsidiaries under review with negative implications. Concurrently, A.M. Best has placed the financial strength rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and the ICR of "a-" of the Winterthur U.S. Group (Wilmington, DE) and its members under review with positive implications. These rating actions follow the announcement that QBE (Query By Example) A method for describing a database query originally developed by IBM for mainframes. A replica of an empty record is displayed and the search conditions are typed in under their respective columns (fields). Reinsurance The contract made between an insurance company and a third party to protect the insurance company from losses. The contract provides for the third party to pay for the loss sustained by the insurance company when the company makes a payment on the original contract. Corporation (Philadelphia, PA) intends to acquire Winterthur U.S. Group from AXA AXA Anguilla, Anguilla (Airport Code) AXA Alpha Chi Alpha AXA Animal Crossing Ahead (online forum community/guide to the game Animal Crossing) AXA Auxiliary Artery S.A. (Paris, France) [NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange : AXA]. Pending regulatory approval, the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007, as is the acquisition of the Praetorian Financial Group (Wilmington, DE), which was announced in December 2006. All of the ratings will remain under review to enable A.M. Best to assess the combined impact of the planned acquisitions of Winterthur U.S. Group and Praetorian Financial Group. A.M. Best expects a level of support to be provided by QBE Re's ultimate parent, QBE Insurance Group Limited, to fund both transactions. The positive implications for Winterthur U.S. Group are reflective of its excellent capital position, strong regional market presence accompanied by a solid agency franchise and increased operational performance led by improved underwriting results. These core strengths are reinforced by the proposed acquisition by QBE. The FSR of A (Excellent) and the ICRs of "a" of QBE Re Group - U.S. (QBE Re) (New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , NY) and its members were placed under review with negative implications following the announcement of the acquisition of Praetorian Financial Group. (See A.M. Best's press release of December 14, 2006.) Those ratings and their under review status have been affirmed, while the ratings for the Praetorian Financial Group, which are also under review with developing implications, remain unchanged. For a complete listing of QBE Insurance Group Limited's and Winterthur U.S. Group's FSRs, ICRs and debt ratings, please visit www.ambest.com/press/010505qbe.pdf. A.M. Best Co., established in 1899, is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit A.M. Best's Web site at www.ambest.com. |
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