Rating Agencies
S&P to Pay $80M Fine, Accept Suspension in Mortgage Bond Rating Case
Standard & Poor's agreed to be suspended from rating the biggest part of the commercial-mortgage bond market and pay almost $80 million to state and federal authorities over claims it bent ...
Potential Reserve Hiccups Keep A.M. Best Commercial Outlook Negative
Even though A.M. Best expects commercial lines operating results to be profitable in 2015, and capital levels to be strong for most insurers, its outlook for the segment remains negative. One key ...
Year-End M&A Spurt Heralding Busy 2015 for Deals: Fitch
Six merger and acquisition announcements in the North American property/casualty insurance and reinsurance sectors in late 2014—and another global deal on the table—may herald a raft of deals in ...
Report: S&P Close to Settling Real Estate Bond Rating Investigation
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services is nearing a settlement with regulators over their investigation of how the company graded real-estate bonds, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people ...
Standard & Poor’s, A.M. Best, Downplay Initial Impact of TRIA’s Demise
Many insurers and businesses argue the absence of federal terrorism reinsurance beginning in 2015 could lead to a market breakdown and canceled coverage. But in the wake of Congress's inability to ...
Fitch: Capital Levels, Continued Profits Support Stable P/C Outlook
In addition to opining that the momentum behind premium rate hikes is now exhausted in the property/casualty insurer sector, Fitch Ratings delivered predictions on key financial measures for 2014 and ...
What Analysts Are Saying: Have P/C Prices Peaked?
With the hardening price phase officially over for property/casualty insurers by some accounts, analysts are not yet predicting any severe price declines for the year ahead—and underwriting profits ...
More Bad News for Reinsurers: Underperforming Stocks
Stocks for 20 publicly traded reinsurance companies performed far worse than the overall market for the first nine months of 2014, according to an equity trend analysis from A.M. Best. The analysis ...