Fitch: FPIC Insurance & Subsidiaries' Ratings Unaffected By Sale of Insurance Management Segment.CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings--03 October 2006: Fitch's ratings on FPIC FPIC First Professionals Insurance Company (Jacksonville, FL) FPIC Field Programmable Interconnect FPIC Federal Partnership for Interoperable Communications FPIC Field Programmable Interconnect Chip Insurance Group (Nasdaq:FPIC) and its wholly owned subsidiaries (see list below) are unaffected by the recently announced sale of FPIC's Insurance Management Segment to Anthony J. Bonomo and AJB AJB America’s Job Bank AJB African Journal of Biotechnology AJB Amt für Jugend und Berufsberatung (German: office for youth and vocational guidance) AJB American Journal of Botany AJB Australian Journal of Botany Ventures Inc for $40 million in cash. In addition, prior to the closing, FPIC received a distribution of nearly $6.0 million in cash from the operations. While Fitch favorably viewed the Insurance Management Segment as a source of unregulated fee income to the holding company, longer term concerns remained about the Segment's ability to sustain an economic profit. In particular, the majority of this segment derived its revenue from the management of Physicians Reciprocal Insurance (PRI PRI: see Institutional Revolutionary party. (Primary Rate Interface) An ISDN service that provides 23 64 Kbps B (Bearer) channels and one 64 Kbps D (Data) channel (23B+D), which is equivalent to the 24 channels of a T1 line. ) a 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 domiciled medical malpractice Improper, unskilled, or negligent treatment of a patient by a physician, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care professional. insurer. Fitch believes that the NY medical malpractice market is facing certain political and regulatory uncertainties that could have a material impact on PRI's operating performance going forward. Fitch will evaluate FPIC's ratings as the proceeds of the transaction are deployed. FPIC is a Florida based publicly traded holding company with operating subsidiaries engaged in medical malpractice insurance. The company ranks among the top fifteen U.S. writers of medical malpractice insurance and ranks number one in Florida, and has significant positions in other markets, including Georgia, Missouri and Arkansas. Created in 1996, FPIC insures over 13,500 medical professionals. As of June 30, 2006, FPIC reported 15% debt-to-capital, an earnings based interest coverage ratio of 14.1 times, net premiums earned of $115 million and shareholders equity of $261 million. Fitch takes no action on the following ratings: FPIC Insurance Group, Inc. --Issuer Default Rating (IDR IDR In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Indonesian Rupiah. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ) 'BBB'; --Senior debt 'BBB-'. First Professional Insurance Company --Insurer Financial Strength (IFS) 'A-'. Anesthesiologists Professional Assurance Company --IFS 'A-'. --Intermed Insurance Company --IFS 'A-'. --Interlex Insurance Company --IFS 'A-'. The Outlook on all Ratings is Stable. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. |
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