Fitch to Release '06 Outlook for Insurance; Teleconference: 12/8 at 11 a.m. EST.

NEW YORK & CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings' North American Insurance Group will host a conference call on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 11 a.m. EST to review the insurance industry's past year and to provide its outlook for the industry for 2006.

Thursday's teleconference, which includes open Q&A, coincides with the release tomorrow of the 2005-2006 Insurance Industry Outlook, which will be available on www.fitchratings.com.

During the Dec. 8 conference call, Fitch's senior insurance analysts will cover key trends in the Property & Casualty, Life, and Health & Managed Care sectors. (Conference call dial-in information at bottom.)

'For property and casualty lines, 2005 is the most devastating year ever for insured catastrophe losses -- by a large measure, leading to a substantial industry underwriting loss for the year,' said James Auden, Senior Director, Fitch Ratings. 'Operating results are expected to improve in 2006; however, returns on capital going forward are likely to be affected by stricter capital requirements to support potential losses from catastrophe exposures.'

For the Life sector, Julie Burke, Managing Director, said 'Fitch believes that the macro and industry trends are increasing the importance of franchise, size, scale, and diversity as means of competitive advantage for life insurers. More of the industry's business is flowing into large, strong, diversified players with competitive market positions and good financial flexibility.'

Burke continued: 'To that end, Fitch increasingly sees stable credit trends among the large diversified players and declining credit trends among the smaller, less diversified players.'

Fitch's views for the Health/Managed Care sector will also be discussed during the conference call.

'The Positive Rating Outlook for the Health/Managed Care sector reflects Fitch's view that favorable operating performance will continue into 2006 and recent improvements in balance sheet fundamentals will be sustained,' said Douglas M. Meyer, Senior Director. 'Furthermore, Fitch does not anticipate material negative developments relating to the regulatory, legislative and legal environment.'

Conference-Call Dial-In Information:

On Dec. 8, interested parties in the U.S. and Canada should call 877-241-2557 and participants outside North America should call 706-643-7396. Participants should call at least five minutes before the 11:00 a.m. EST start time and give the title of the call as '2006 Insurance Sector Outlook.'

A replay of the teleconference will be available approximately two hours after the call ends. For the replay, interested parties should dial 800-642-1687 (U.S./Canada) or 706-645-9291 (outside North America). The conference ID number for the replay is '3005443'.

In addition, a web-based audio replay of the teleconference will be archived on the Fitch Ratings web site for three months. Two days after the conference call, interested parties can find the appropriate audio link at the 'Teleconference and Online Events' link, located under 'About Fitch' at www.fitchratings.com.

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.