AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company and Its Subsidiaries

OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A+ (Superior) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings of “aa-” (Superior) of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company (Penn Mutual Life) (Horsham, PA) and its wholly owned subsidiaries, The Penn Insurance and Annuity Company (Wilmington, DE) and The Penn Insurance and Annuity Company of New York (Brewster, NY). These companies collectively are referred to as Penn Mutual Group (Penn Mutual). Concurrently, AM Best has affirmed the Long-Term Issue Credit Ratings (Long-Term IRs) of “a” (Excellent) on the $200 million, 6.65% surplus notes, due 2034, and the Long-Term IR of “a” (Excellent) on the $200 million, 7.625% surplus notes, due 2040, issued by Penn Mutual Life. The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable.

The ratings reflect Penn Mutual’s balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strongest, as well as its strong operating performance, favorable business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

Penn Mutual manages its business through three distinct avenues: life insurance and annuities; wealth management; and institutional asset management. It has garnered a strong competitive position and solid market position in each of these areas. The company has a strong distribution model that primarily focuses on retail business and consistently demonstrates above-industry career agent retention rates, as well as above-industry agent productivity based on first-year life commission earnings. Penn Mutual recently divested its broker-dealer subsidiary, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC (Janney), and has committed to redeploying the capital from this transaction back into profitable product lines.

From the balance sheet perspective, Penn Mutual consistently maintains the strongest assessment of risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR). The group exhibits positive overall total liquidity and holds cash and investments that are sound, diversified and liquid in nature with positive cash flows. Balance sheet stress test scenarios indicate very strong liquidity positions on both a short- and long-term basis. There is some elevation in Penn Mutual’s reinsurance dependence in excess of the individual life composite when compared with similarly rated companies; however, these are with highly rated reinsurance partners. Penn Mutual’s operating revenue growth has been solid across all lines, which is complemented by its diversification of both insurance and wealth management businesses.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best’s website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best’s Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Best’s Credit Ratings, Best’s Performance Assessments, Best’s Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Best’s Ratings & Assessments.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

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