S&P Affirms, Withdraws SCOR’s CRP Subs Ratings

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services announced that it has affirmed its “BBB+” insurer financial strength ratings on two subsidiaries of French reinsurer SCOR: Bermuda-based Commercial Risk Reinsurance Co. Ltd. and Vermont-domiciled Commercial Risk Re-Insurance Co. (collectively, CRP). S&P then withdrew the ratings at the group’s request.

“The insurer financial strength ratings on the CRP companies, which have been in runoff since 2002, remain based on full and unconditional payment obligation guarantees issued to their policyholders by SCOR (foreign currency, BBB+/Positive/–; local currency, BBB+/Positive/A-2),” S&P noted. “The guarantees remain in place and are unaffected by the ratings withdrawal. As runoff entities, the most likely scenario that would result in either guarantee terminating, according to the guarantee language, would be the transfer of a CRP subsidiary to a third party group and the subsequent qualification of the subsidiary in question for a rating at least equal to that on SCOR.”

The rating agency indicated it “will continue to review CRP as part of its ongoing surveillance of the SCOR group.”