AM Best downgrades credit ratings of United Fire Group, Inc. and its property/casualty subsidiaries to A- (Excellent) with stable outlook

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Aug. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, AM Best announced downgrades of the credit ratings of United Fire Group, Inc. ("UFG") and its property/casualty subsidiaries. Specifically, the Financial Strength Rating was downgraded to A- (Excellent) from A (Excellent), and the Long-Term Issue Credit Ratings ("ICR") of the property/casualty subsidiaries of UFG to “a-” (Excellent) from “a” (Excellent). Concurrently, AM Best has downgraded the Long-Term ICR to “bbb-” (Good) from “bbb” (Good) of UFG. The outlook of these ratings was revised to stable.

See the AM Best press release at news.ambest.com for full commentary.

“While we are disappointed with this outcome, we acknowledge that recent years’ financial results have not met our high standards as a company,” said Kevin Leidwinger, President and Chief Executive Officer of UFG Insurance. “We are fully committed to achieving the level of performance and recognition commensurate with an “A” rating and will continue to take steps to accelerate our path to long-term profitability.

“Since taking over leadership of UFG last August, we have made significant progress in reshaping our company for the future. We have re-engaged our distribution partners and restored responsible growth in our core commercial business; delivered diversified growth in surety, specialty, and assumed reinsurance; evolved the underwriting organization to deepen our expertise and better serve the distinct needs of small business and middle market customers; reduced our catastrophe footprint with a broad range of actions underway to optimize our catastrophe exposure across the portfolio; and introduced greater actuarial rigor across the organization. In addition, we have acted to sustainably reduce our expense ratio while funding critical investments in technology, analytics, and talent.

“We believe our actions will soon begin to show progress in delivering a superior level of financial and operational performance that our valued agents, employees, policyholders and shareholders expect and deserve from us.”

“At UFG, we take great pride in our history as a strong and stable insurance company,” said Jim Noyce, Chairman of the UFG Board of Directors. “AM Best ratings are an important and respected measure in the insurance industry. The UFG Board of Directors has the utmost confidence that Kevin and his team are executing on the strategies that will deliver profitable growth.”