A.M. Best Releases Additional Best’s Credit Rating Methodology Draft Criteria Procedures

CONTACTS:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OLDWICK - APRIL 27, 2017 08:55 AM (EDT)
A.M. Best continues to refine its proposed Best’s Credit Rating Methodology (BCRM) to further increase transparency and consistency. As part of this process, the following draft BCRM-related criteria procedures have been released for comment:

• Alternative Risk Transfer (ART)


• A.M. Best Ratings On a National Scale


• A.M. Best’s Stress Liquidity Ratio for U.S. Life Insurers


• Analyzing Perpetual Insurers


• Evaluating Country Risk


• Measuring Transfer and Convertibility Risk


• Rating Lloyd’s Operations


• Rating New Company Formations


• Rating Reinsurance Pools


• Rating Run-Off Insurers and Specialists


• Rating Surety Companies


• Rating Takaful (Shari’a Compliant) Companies


• Understanding BCAR for Canadian Property/Casualty Insurers

Some of these draft criteria procedures are amalgamations of current, in-use criteria procedures. Those that relate to the rating of specialty insurers emphasize what is unique or different between the analysis of the specialty insurer and the analytical process as outlined in the draft BCRM.

Also included in this release is the proposed revision to the criteria procedure for Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) for Canadian property/casualty writers. Companies that are evaluated using this BCAR model will receive their new BCAR output. Company management is encouraged to review their BCAR output, when received, in conjunction with this criteria procedure.

These draft criteria procedures are available in the methodology section of A.M. Best’s website. A.M. Best is requesting comment on these draft criteria procedures from insurance industry participants and other interested parties. Written comments should be submitted by e-mail to methodology.commentary@ambest.com no later than May 31, 2017. When submitting comments to the methodology in-box, commenters have the option of requesting anonymity. All comments received through the methodology in-box that do not request anonymous treatment will generally be published in their entirety, with attribution to the author/sender, upon implementation of the criteria procedure.

A.M. Best expects to release another batch of criteria procedures later this year. The comment process and further information on the draft BCRM criteria procedure update process is outlined in the April 6, 2017 Best’s Briefing, titled, “Criteria Update: The Comment Process, Potential BCRM Modifications, and Draft BCRM Criteria Procedures Update.”

To access the full copy of this briefing, please visit http://www3.ambest.com/bestweek/purchase.asp?record_code=260406 .

To view a video discussion on this subject with Stephen A. Irwin, senior director, Credit Rating Criteria – Research and Analytics, please visit http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=bcrm417 .

A.M. Best is the world’s oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source.