Fitch Affirms Navy Mutual Aid Association's IFS Rating at 'A+'.CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. has affirmed Navy Mutual Aid Association's (NMAA NMAA National Museum of American Art NMAA New Mexico Activities Association NMAA Nursing Mothers Association of Australia NMAA National Museum of African Art NMAA National Multimedia Association of America NMAA Navy Mutual Aid Association NMAA Night Master-At-Arms ) 'A+' Insurer Financial Strength (IFS)rating. The Rating Outlook is Stable. NMAA's IFS rating reflects the association's very strong capital levels, high quality, liquid investment portfolio, favorable business profile with predominantly traditional life insurance, and strong niche position as a low-cost provider of insurance protection products to 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. sea services and their families. Fitch views as additional strengths NMAA's conservative reserving, excellent persistency, low mortality and consistently low expense ratios. Fitch believes that NMAA's 'war risk' is prudently managed and that mortality experience is within expectations despite the current conflict in the Middle East. Rating concerns include NMAA's sluggish growth in membership in recent years, moderate surplus volatility and limited financial flexibility and access to capital markets. Fitch notes that premiums declined modestly in 2007 and that membership growth has been relatively flat over the past three years. However, NMAA's plan sales and insurance in force have increased due to the popularity of NMAA's family of plans, competitively priced products and value-added service to its membership. Fitch notes that NMAA continues to diversify its investment portfolio as a strategy to reduce exposure to common stock price volatility. Driven by NMAA's reserve profile and member focus NMAA's investment strategy, includes a moderately higher than industry allocation Industry allocation Investment of certain proportions of a portfolio in certain industries. Sometimes called sector allocation. to common stocks and a longer than average bond portfolio duration. This strategy has helped maintain the association's strong dividend rates in recent years but also moderately increased surplus volatility and interest rate risk. Fitch expects NMAA will maintain a solid balance sheet in 2008 with strong capital levels as measured by Prism and a high-quality, liquid investment portfolio. Prism is Fitch's proprietary stochastic capital model for insurance organizations. Fitch expects NMAA to report good operating performance in 2008, driven by low expenses, strong levels of investment income and very low credit related investment losses. Fitch believes NMAA will exhibit renewed premium growth in 2008, driven by a successful marketing outreach to its membership base, moderate geographic expansion and strong comparative product value. NMAA serves active, reserve and retired members of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS USPHS United States Public Health Service. USPHS abbr. United States Public Health Service ), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Noun 1. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; provides weather reports and forecasts floods and hurricanes and (NOAA NOAA abbr. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Noun 1. NOAA - an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; ) and had total assets of approximately $2.2 billion at year end 2007. The association is located in Arlington, VA and currently has approximately 100,000 members and more than $18 billion of insurance in force. Fitch affirms the following, with a Stable Outlook: Navy Mutual Aid Association --IFS at 'A+'. 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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