Credit rating company Standard & Poor’s ( “S & P”)  issued a strong risk management and capital adequacy of the insurance industry in North America to disprove an lingering rumors of an insurance industry meltdown. S & P pointed out that the U.S. economic downturn will be the most significant challenge to the insurance industry in 2009.

S & P expects that insurance companies to continue to pay attention to the various capital management strategy, product pricing and affect the business structure of the portfolio, profits, capital market risk ratings. At the same time, S & P pointed out that the current economic climate during the recession have become more realistic, in the past, a small error could now lead to serious consequences.

S & P said that in 2008, the United States had a  few insurance companies in the field of vision to negative, which means that in the coming year up to 18 months, downgrades to the number of bodies will be more than the number of upgrades. The imbalance is likely to drag a number of insurance companies. S & P believes that 2009 will be a challenging year. This will be the most prominent aspects of capital adequacy ratio. Of course, the whole, the insurance industry in North America’s capital adequacy situation is relatively better, and there is a clear risk.

In addition, the S & P believes that the insurance industry in North America on the assessment of credit quality, strong risk management has become increasingly important.

Taking into consideration the insurance industry as a whole operating performance, S & P said that the United States will risk individuals (including vehicle insurance and home insurance) from a stable outlook to negative due to the continuing decline in revenues.

S & P expects that the economic slowdown will continue until 2009 story, so that the insurance industry faces the challenge of further expanding the environment. Decision-making and implementation of operational mistakes will enable a number of insurance companies and their rating of “injured” in the current financial crisis during the performance will be more evident.

S & P predicts that in 2009 U.S. commercial insurance situation will not risk more than a good number. In line with the above-mentioned point of view, the 2009 S & P will maintain the U.S. insurance business (including property and casualty insurance) negative rating.