The Shipowners’ Club, major P&I insurer in the smaller and specialist vessel sector, has announced its first interactive ratings assigned by two leading credit agencies.
S&P has confirmed the mutual’s rating as 'A –' with an outlook of Stable. At the same time A.M.Best assessed Shipowners as A - (Excellent)
To underpin its future business plan and development objectives, the Club’s board decided earlier in the year to apply for an inter-active assessment from both agencies.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) assigned the Club its 'A -' long-term counterparty credit and insurer financial strength rating. The outlook for this rating is Stable.
S&P said that it based its rating, in part “....on very strong capital adequacy that has improved significantly in recent years as a result of the club’s recent strong earnings.” Regarding its outlook of Stable, S&P stated it “…reflects our view that the club will maintain its strong capitalization and operating performance over the medium term.”
A.M.Best have assigned a financial strength rating to Shipowners of A – (Excellent). The outlook was also confirmed as Stable. The agency’s announcement recognised that “The Club has a good niche business profile providing P&I insurance for over 31,000 small and specialised vessels operated by 6,000 members worldwide.”
In welcoming the news Charles Hume, Shipowners’ Chief Executive, said, “We resolved to up-grade to an inter-active rating with two agencies whose reputations as influential, independent authorities on financial performance are well established across the world. We are very happy that our first review with both agencies has resulted in A – ratings, reflecting our own view of the strength and stability of the Club’s underwriting record and the size of our free reserves. We are sure that our Members and their brokers will be pleased to note that the overall strength of the Club has been recognised by these ratings.”