AM Best affirms the Financial Strength Rating of 'A' (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of 'a+' (Excellent) of Blue Whale Re, the Burlington, Vermont-based captive. The outlook of these ratings is 'stable'. The ratings reflect Blue Whale's balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, alongside its strong operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). They also reflect Blue Whale's role as the only captive insurer for Pfizer, the global pharmaceutical company. Blue Whale insures or reinsures Pfizer's international employee benefits and global property exposures, among other coverages, placing it at the centre of Pfizer's overall ERM and the protection of the wider enterprise's assets. Blue Whale provides substantial retentions across its Pfizer coverages, augmented by significant reinsurance capacity. Through recent years of hard market conditions, the captive has opted to participate in small slices of its catastrophe tower as an economic efficiency for the Pfizer enterprise, and offers cyber liability capacity when hard market pricing requires it. AM Best describes the reinsurance programme as appropriate and diverse, providing ample cover for property exposures, and recognises the quality of the reinsurers and the substantial financial resources available to the captive as part of Pfizer. The captive covers low frequency, high severity exposures where losses have not compromised its strong operating performance. The stable outlooks reflect AM Best's view that the company will continue to generate strong operating results that support capitalisation at a level consistent with the ratings. The agency also expects Pfizer's ability and willingness to support Blue Whale, an integral part of its corporate ERM programme, to remain unchanged.
