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Bermuda insurer ratings highlight credit, ownership dynamics affecting companies - Business Insurance Skip to content Register for free Search Search Log In Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Bermuda insurer ratings highlight credit, ownership dynamics affecting companies by Stuart Shipperlee P/C Insurers Lloyd's of London , Mosaic Apr 24, 2026 The ratings of Business Insurance’ s selected insurers for its Bermuda list, from which Litmus calculates each insurer’s Litmus Composite Score, or rating average, highlight some key considerations for rating users. It includes a business underwriting through a Lloyd’s of London syndicate, a group whose ratings have, as of April 7, a risk of downgrade due to a change of ownership, and a “BBB range” rated insurer. We briefly discuss the background rating methodology context for these scenarios here. Readers are welcome to contact us to discuss these in more detail. Mosaic, which trades at Lloyd’s via a syndicate A common misconception is that a Lloyd’s policyholder is taking credit risk with the syndicate or syndicates underwriting its policy. But, in practice, the credit risk is fundamentally taken with the Lloyd’s Market in the aggregate. Hence, the agency ratings of the market overall. The “risk capital” supporting the ability to pay a syndicate’s claims is held at the “member” — Lloyd’s syndicate capital provider — level and underpinned by the Lloyd’s Central Fund, which is, in effect, the partial mutualization of member capital. Insurer ownership changes and potential rating actions As of April 7, S&P Global has the rated insurers within the Vantage group on “creditwatch negative,” meaning the ratings could either be affirmed at their current level or downgraded. Best has assigned an “under review with developing implications,” which allows for all three possible rating actions. The agencies note that the rating reviews are specifically due to the group’s change of ownership to Howard Hughes Holdings. A wider ownership consideration for rating users is that some insurers within any group may have stand-alone credit profiles that appear weaker than the ratings assigned to them. This happens when the rating an agency assigns to an insurer reflects, in whole or in part, the consolidated strength of the total group, not simply that insurer’s own credit profile. While this can sometimes reflect a parental guarantee, it more commonly reflects an agency’s subjective analysis of the parental group’s willingness to support the insurer for strategic reasons. Thus, a group’s sale of an insurer can trigger a rating action. ‘BBB range’ ratings Understanding the varying rating agency rating scales and notations, specifically the term and concept of “BBB range” ratings as discussed throughout this article, is explained on the Litmus Analysis website. Best currently assigns Everen Specialty a BBB+ rating. Parts of the commercial lines and reinsurance industries can regard an “A-” rating level as the table stakes for insurers writing that business. However, this is not obviously derived from rating agencies’ own rating scale descriptions. An agency assigning an A- to one insurer and a BBB+ to another reflects the agency’s belief that the former is relatively stronger, due to any or a combination of its own credit profile, its parental group, public-sector support and its domicile. There is no conceptual distinction, though, between that view of relative financial strength difference and the difference between, say, an A and an A-. The perception of an A- requirement is simply a market convention. To the extent there is an agency-defined delineation point, that happens between BBB- and BB+. Hence, the bond market usage of “investment grade” for bonds rated BBB- and higher and “non-investment grade,” also known as “junk,” for bonds rated BB+ or below. A related context for rating usage within the insurance industry is that market participants do not always consider the potential duration of their exposure to a given insurer when deciding what rating level is acceptable to them. We covered this a few years ago in our blog “When is a BBB rating really the same as an A+?”, which can be found at Litmusanalysis.com. Stuart Shipperlee is head of analysis at Litmus Analysis in London. He can be contacted at [email protected] . BACKGROUND TO THE TABLE AND ITS CONTENTS Business Insurance and insurance rating specialists Litmus Analysis have teamed up to provide readers with a unique perspective on the ratings of insurers and reinsurers that matter to them, as selected by BI. We will periodically cover insurers in North America, Bermuda and Europe, and global reinsurers. The foundation is the Litmus Composite Score, which is Litmus’ proprietary method for creating an average rating from those published by the major rating agencies. For clarity, it should be stressed that the LCS outcomes and their associated rating scale mappings are not the expression of Litmus’ own opinion of any named group or insurer. Litmus is not a rating agency and does not provide its own rating opinions. Insurers and reinsurers within the same rated groups may be assigned different rating levels, and ratings can and do change. To check the latest ratings from any agency, visit its public ratings website. For more details on why an averaged rating outcome may be helpful, the rating relationship between groups and their insurer ratings and the LCS calculation methodology, including tie-break situations and how different agency rating scales are interpreted and combined, visit www.litmusanalysis.com/litmus-composite-score or contact Litmus at [email protected] Related News Insurers, brokers react to data center boom April 24, 2026 Rising convective storm losses test insurers as property rates fall in competitive market April 24, 2026 Care access problems strain comp sector, slowing worker recovery, increasing costs April 24, 2026 View from the top: Karl Hennessy, McGill and Partners April 24, 2026 Viewpoint: Handling autonomous risks April 24, 2026 Editorial: One giant, complex leap for insurance April 24, 2026 Captive owners adapt to market changes April 24, 2026 Perspectives: When good claims go bad — the mental factors we can no longer ignore April 24, 2026 Severe injuries reshape workers comp claims April 24, 2026 Facebook-f X-twitter Linkedin-in Business Insurance is a singular, authoritative news and information source for executives focused upon risk management, risk transfer and risk financing. 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