The FINANCIAL — A.M. Best Co. has affirmed the financial strength rating of A (Excellent) and issuer credit rating of "a+" of Royal Bank of Canada Insurance Company Ltd. (RBCICL) (Barbados).
The outlook for both ratings is stable.
RBCICL is a reinsurer that is ultimately owned by Royal Bank of Canada, the largest full service bank in Canada by assets. RBCICL primarily reinsures life/health insurance risks from unaffiliated international reinsurers, as well as credit reinsurance risks from European reinsurers. In the past, RBCICL has added other lines of business with the purpose of diversifying its risk profile, and the company participates as a treaty partner in life retrocession pools, trade credit pools and annuity longevity.
The ratings acknowledge RBCICL's continuing pattern of strong profitability, solid capitalization and strong liquidity, which continues to support a high shareholder dividend payout ratio, part of its business model structure. These financial strengths and positive operating trends are based upon a focused strategy on RBCICL's core credit life business and conservative investment practices. RBCICL's investment portfolio is composed of high quality sovereign, corporate and supranational bonds, which are of short duration. The resilience of the Canadian banking environment has provided stability to the banking and insurance operations through the global financial crisis. This global financial crisis was anticipated to have a more severe impact on both operations than what transpired.
While recognizing the solid market position of Royal Bank of Canada and RBCICL's consistency of net written premiums, A.M. Best notes that growth in the enterprise depends upon the rate of new loan originations. A.M. Best believes that while the banking and insurance operations have demonstrated resilience, potential future decreases in consumer loan activity in Canada can still adversely impact the associated opportunities to market credit insurance. The ratings also consider the challenges RBCICL faces in balancing a high level of capitalization required to support the company's business with alternative uses of capital at the parent company level.
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