rating methodology

The awaited changes to ratings of property insurance carriers with a Florida focus by rating agency Demotech have begun, with United Property & Casualty Insurance Company downgraded two notches to “M”, while insurers FedNat and Weston have both had their ratings withdrawn.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has waded into Florida’s property insurance crisis, adding to calls for a Federal review of the states dependence on Demotech as a rating agency.

Rating agency Demotech has now extended the rating revision process for covered Florida property insurance carriers, which had been expected to end today, while at the same time responding to criticism from Florida state leaders.

With Florida’s property insurance market seemingly entering a new level of crisis, on the news that Demotech may downgrade a slew of carriers which caused a significant backlash from state officials, it’s remiss not to consider the impact on the reinsurance market, how that may further pressure those carriers and also the challenges this all […]

Rating agency Demotech has warned an additional 17 Florida property insurance carriers that they may have their ratings downgraded on July 26th, a move that has resulted in a backlash from Florida’s state Insurance Commissioner and CFO.

Rating agency A.M. Best has changed a proposed update to its Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) that would have seen catastrophe risk become a direct capital requirement and has also reduced the emphasis on catastrophe tail risks in the capital adequacy calculation.

Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has published an updated version of its rating methodology for catastrophe bonds, clarifying the firms approach to monitoring in-force cat bonds and mortality bonds, while making editorial changes to the methodologies text for clarity.

Fitch Ratings has published an updated version of its insurance-linked securities (ILS) rating criteria and methodology, with a number of changes to how it handles assessing ILS and catastrophe bonds but none have affected any existing ratings.

The hedge fund backed reinsurance mode which seeks to leverage premium inflows as investment capital in hedge fund strategies in an attempt to outperform on the asset-side, is not treated as a new business model by rating agency A.M. Best.

Rating agency Moody’s Investor Services has published a new version of its methodology and criteria for rating catastrophe bond transactions. The document, published yesterday, consolidates  into a single document and replaces several older publications which defined Moody’s approach to rating cat bonds.