Standard & Poor’s has put 15 European insurers under negative supervision

The American rating agency Standard & Poor’s has announced that it will await the results of the review of the sovereign rating for 15 countries in the euro zone to decide a possible downgrade of 15 European insurers including AXA, CCR (France), Allianz, Aviva and Generali. CCR’s rating would be downgraded by two notches and that of Generali by three. CCR has said that its possible downgrade cannot be accounted for by the degradation of its financial soundness (AAA rating) since its shareholding is 100% public, but it should be due to the fact that S&P regards it as a State-related company. But France is currently under scrutiny by rating agencies.