KBRA Affirms Ratings for Baltimore Financial Group, Inc. and Baltimore Life Insurance Company
23 Jul 2024 | New York
KBRA affirms the Issuer Rating for Baltimore Financial Group, Inc. at BBB- and the Insurance Financial Strength Rating for Baltimore Life Insurance Company at A-. The Outlook for both ratings is Stable.
The ratings reflect Baltimore Life Insurance Company’s (BLIC) high-quality investment portfolio with above benchmark investment returns, high quality of capital, diversified distribution, and a reserve mix emphasizing lower risk products. BLIC has no financial leverage, has historically utilized reinsurance prudently, and holds full no lapse UL reserves. KBRA notes that the company’s RBC is sound, but surplus has been declining due to operating losses. Baltimore Life’s fixed income portfolio is externally managed and has generally outperformed its benchmark from a total return perspective. The company has a low-risk group of product offerings including whole life, term life, universal life, final expense, asset transfer products, and annuities. Baltimore Life utilizes career agents and independent marketing organizations to reach its target middle income market.
Factors offsetting these credit strengths include challenges to operating performance in recent years, declining TAC, adequate enterprise risk management that needs to continue to evolve, strong competition in key product lines, and exposure to interest sensitive business. The current interest rate environment has provided opportunities to reduce risk in the asset portfolio as investments in alternatives are no longer needed to meet BLIC’s targeted investment yield, which it can now achieve with corporate bonds. There is significant competition in BLIC’s target markets and the company lacks the scale and brand recognition of more well-established insurers. KBRA believes the company’s ERM program is appropriate for its risk profile although the framework is still evolving and will need to keep pace with its expanding liability profile. The company has historically utilized reinsurance to partially manage strain. However, continued investments in technology may weigh on financial results over the near-term.
Factors that could positively impact the rating include: increased risk-adjusted capitalization, return to favorable earnings trends from multiple product lines, increased operating scale, or material positive variance to financial projections provided to KBRA.
Factors that could negatively impact the rating include: a material unfavorable change in the company’s risk profile, failure to meet financial projections provided to KBRA, material realized investment losses, decline in risk-adjusted capitalization, continued unfavorable trends in operating profitability, a shift in business mix to less creditworthy or riskier products, or a loss of key business partners or distribution sources.
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