Fitch Keeps Comm. P-C Outlook Stable

Michael Ha

NU Online News Service, Nov. 1, 3:00 p.m. EST?Fitch Ratings, unlike its peer rating agency Standard & Poor's, said that at least for now, it is not downgrading its "Stable" outlook for the commercial property-casualty insurance sector, on the belief that the alleged bid-rigging activity being investigated by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was not widespread among carriers.[@@]

"We realize keeping our outlook at ?Stable' is in contrast to a rating action taken by [S&P on Oct. 22]," said Keith Buckley, Fitch managing director, during an analysts conference call. Mr. Buckley explained that Fitch has decided to take a rather deliberate approach, "because our fear is that if we move too quickly, reacting to every little bit of news, we can send cross-signals or have to backtrack."

Fitch has been quick to act on brokers' ratings since the bid-rigging scandal broke, by placing Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. on "Rating Watch Negative" and cutting various Marsh ratings, including long-term ratings, to "triple-B" from "A-minus." It also put Aon Corporation ratings on "Rating Watch." However, Fitch has yet to take any rating actions against carriers and is keeping its "Stable" rating outlook on the commercial p-c insurance sector. During the analysts call, the ratings firm listed four considerations for this assessment:

? Fitch said it doesn't anticipate that fines levied against carriers will be large enough to move credit ratings. That's not to say that carriers won't be slapped with hefty fines, it's just that insurers currently involved in the investigation won't have much problem paying off heavy penalties.

"We certainly anticipate fines against carriers. To some degree our expectation is based on the fines that have been leveraged against other industries?specifically the $1.4 billion reportedly paid by the 10 investment banks and the $1.9 billion assessed against various mutual funds," said Fitch senior director Donald Thorpe during an analyst conference call.

He added, however, that commercial insurers named by Attorney General Spitzer to date are some of the largest in the sector. Their earnings profiles would easily allow for settlement payments in the range of those paid by investment banks and investment managers involved in past investigations by Mr. Spitzer's office.

? No commercial insurers have been named as defendants in the New York attorney general's civil lawsuit to date. "The investigation so far has been directed against individual insurance company employees and not the insurers themselves," observed Mr. Thorpe. "And it appears that insurers have been quick to cooperate with the attorney general's office, which may have helped."

? Fitch said it believes damage done to insurers' franchise value is less severe than the damage inflicted on brokers' franchise value.

"Insurers' franchise values have not been damaged to the point of meaningful credit deterioration," Mr. Thorpe said. "This is not to say some damage has not occurred. It certainly has." However, he added, "it has been focused on companies involved in the bid-rigging, and even at that, not at a serious level."

? Finally, Fitch said it doubts that carriers' profitability has benefited that much from the alleged bid-rigging activities. In its analysis, Fitch found that for the alleged bid-rigging scheme to have a material effect on insurers' overall combined ratio, a fairly large portion of the sector's premiums would have to have been exposed to the alleged activity.

"At this point, our best guess is that the activity was not widespread, and that the impact on prices is not large," Mr. Thorpe said. For example, if the bid-rigging affected only 1 percent of the commercial insurance premium, the effect on the insurers' overall combined ratio would be very small, even if the effect on pricing for specific contracts that were rigged was very large.

"If we use this 1 percent premium example?and let's say we assume that pricing was 75 percent higher than it otherwise would have been?the combined ratio change as a result of eliminating this activity would only be six-tenths of a point," Mr. Thorpe said.

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Fitch Keeps Comm. P-C Outlook Stable

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