S&P to change rating criteria

Rating agency Standard & Poor’s has announced that it is changing its criteria for rating insurance companies.

This is to enhance the transparency of its methodology and the comparability of ratings on insurers globally with those in other sectors, according to credit analyst Rodney Clark.

“The review may result in revisions to some of our assumptions and methodologies, leading to adjustments to some insurance company ratings,” he said.

"We expect the significant majority of ratings to remain unchanged or move by no more than one notch. Changes to our ratings on any particular insurer will nevertheless depend on the criteria that we adopt after the review.”

The proposed framework supports forward-looking analysis, incorporating existing elements of our rating analysis with some additional credit elements, most notably the introduction of an Insurance Industry Country Risk Assessment (IICRA).