Pursuant to section 8 (1) of the Insurance Companies (Ratings & Inspections) Act 1994, the insurer financial strength rating for TOWER Insurance Limited has been changed to "A-" from "A".
At the same time, this rating has been placed on CreditWatch with negative implications.
The new rating, which remains in the "strong" category, is the result of the recent announcement that the TOWER Group results for the year ended 30 September 2002 will be adverse to current market expectations.
This adverse result has occurred in the group's Australian operations, which do not affect TOWER Insurance Limited's underlying strength.