Abstract
United Fire and Casualty rating was carried out by A.M Best Co. The rating proved to be favorable, nevertheless, there was few limitations, which was slowing down the company's progress. The article below reflects the grades assigned to the company in different categories.
United Fire and Casualty Company is included in the parent company, which is known by the name United Fire Group. United Fire and Casualty Company is involved in writing casualty insurance and property. It is also an underwriter for life insurance. The operations of the company take place in two categories:
Casualty insurance and property insurance
Life Insurance.
The former segment is responsible for marketing products of casualty insurance, personal property, and reinsurance as well surety bonds. As the name suggests the latter segment is responsible for selling life insurance products.
United Fire and Casualty ratings were conducted by A.M Best Co., which is known for its expertise in company ratings. An overview of the United Fire and Casualty ratings is given below.
United Fire and Casualty ratings by A.M Best Co.:
Company ratings are carried out to ascertain the financial strength of companies, to assess whether the companies are in a position to make payments of claims filed by the policyholders.
A.M Best Co., assigned A for the company's financial strength rating or FSR.
The ICR or Issuer Credit Rating of the company (United Fire and Casualty) was assigned “a” from “a+”.
For United Fire and Casualty Company, rating of the preferred stocks was assigned “bbb”.
The United Fire and Casualty ratings by A.M Best Co. are regarded as having a stable outlook.
As far as the FSR or the financial strength rating of United Life Insurance Company is concerned, it was conferred A-. For the same company, the issuer credit rating was “a-”.
United Fire and Casualty ratings are indicative of the following:
The following may be inferred from the ratings conducted on the company.
The company is adequately equipped with “risk adjusted capitalization”.
The underwriting skills have improved over time.
There has been an overall enhancement of the company's performance.
However, the company is dependent on annuities for earnings, which makes it susceptible to the changes in the rates of interest. The need of the hour for the company as slated by A.M Best is to strike a balance between the annuity business as well as quality pertaining to investment portfolio.