S&P downgrades eight European insurers

Rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has downgraded eight European insurers, including Allianz’s Italian operation and Ageas’s Portuguese unit.

The agency cut Allianz SpA’s credit rating two notches  to A+ from AA and Milleniumbcp-Ageas Group’s rating two notches to BB from BBB-.

Spanish insurance group Mapfre also suffered a two-notch downgrade, while Italian insurance firms Generali, Unipol and Cattolica, France’s state-backed reinsurer Caisse Centrale de Reassurance and Spanish reinsurer Nacional were all downgraded by one notch.

The rating cuts follow S&P’s decision to downgrade the sovereign ratings of nine of the 17 eurozone countries at the end of last week. Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain received two-notch downgrades from the agency, while Austria, France, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia’s ratings were cut by one notch.

However, S&P has yet to decide how to treat the ratings of some of Europe’s biggest insurance groups following the sovereign downgrades.

“We have not yet completed our review of the effect of the sovereign actions on Allianz Group, Aviva Group, Axa Group, and CNP Group and have therefore not taken any rating action on these groups today,” S&P said in a statement.

S&P also affirmed the ratings of several Irish insurance firms and removed them from negative credit-watch, including Allianz PLC, RSA Ireland, AXA Insurance Ltd, Aviva Insurance (Europe) SE and IPB.

Also on the affirmed list were Slovenian firms Triglav and SAVA.