Fitch Boosts Transparency of its U.S. Health Insurer Ratings.

CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings said today that it is implementing new ratings standards for the U.S. Health Insurance Sector that will add greater transparency to the agency's ratings. Fitch's new methodology released in a special report entitled 'Insurance Industry: Global Notching Methodology,' delineates the impact of default risk, and recovery given default, on ratings.

The implementation of the new ratings standards is being done concurrently for most insurance sectors globally, and follows the publication of an exposure draft of the noted methodology report on Dec. 14, 2005 and a market feedback period. A summary of the major areas of feedback, and Fitch's responses, can be found in the report 'Responses to Feedback on Insurance Industry Notching Methodology' also published today and available on the Fitch Ratings web site at www.fitchratings.com.

The new ratings methodology is designed to add greater transparency to Fitch's insurance industry ratings. This is accomplished by more clearly assessing the effect of default risk and recovery given default on ratings. Specifically, the new ratings standards clearly distinguish how default and recovery risk is influenced by various insurance regulatory standards around the world, and varying treatments with respect to policyholder preference and payment restrictions between an operating company and holding company.

As part of the new methodology Fitch is assigning a new Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to essentially all debt issuing entities rated by Fitch. The IDR is a pure measure of default risk at the entity level. Fitch believes that the distinction between the IDR and unsecured senior debt rating provides significant value added information for investors not previously available. A list of newly assigned IDRs for the U.S. Health Insurance Sector appears near the bottom of this release.

The relationship between health insurer's IDRs and existing senior unsecured debt ratings is primarily dependent on characteristics of the regulatory jurisdictions and environments in which the debt issuing holding companies and subsidiary life insurance companies operate.

Greater details on Fitch's new guidelines governing notching of issue ratings relative to the IDR, as well as the notching between Insurer Financial Strength Ratings (IFS) at an operating company level and debt ratings at a holding company level are available in the noted methodology report.

All rating changes being made today in implementing the new ratings guidelines are being designated as 'revisions', as opposed to upgrades or downgrades. This is being done to make clear that the rating change is driven by a methodology change, as opposed to a change in Fitch's views on the fundamental credit profile of the entity or its rated issues.

The following rating experienced an upward revision upon implementation of the new guidelines:

Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc.

-- Surplus notes revised to 'A' from 'A-'.

The following table contains IDRs assigned upon implementation of the new methodology.

Aetna Inc.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A-';

-- Rating Outlook Positive.

BCBS of Florida

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A-';

-- Rating Outlook Positive.

CIGNA Corp.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'BBB+';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

Coventry Health Care Inc.*

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'BB+';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

Health Care Service Corp.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York 

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'BBB-';

-- Rating Watch Negative.

Sierra Health Services Inc.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'BBB-';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

UnitedHealth Group, Inc.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A+';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

PacifiCare Health Systems, Inc.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A+';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

Wellpoint, Inc.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

Anthem Holding Corporation

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc.

-- Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A+';

-- Rating Outlook Stable.

Finally, all long-term issuer and short-term issuer ratings previously assigned in the U.S. Health Insurance Sector are withdrawn.

The new methodology has not been implemented for the following organizations for which nontraditional notching was used under the prior methodology, and for which Fitch plans to complete an updated analysis of the issuer prior to implementation of the new methodology: Humana Inc. and Health Net, Inc. Fitch expects to have the new methodology in place for these companies by March 31, 2006.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use 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 are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. Issuers denoted with a (*) did not participate in the rating process other than through the medium of their public disclosure.