ACE Comments on Impact of Midwest Floods on Crop Insurance Results

Bermuda-based ACE Limited has announced that, based on current estimates, the impact of the recent floods in the Midwestern U.S. “will have a negligible impact on both second quarter and full-year earnings per share results on its crop insurance business.”

U.S. agriculture is heavily dependent upon Bermuda’s insurers for crop protection. According to the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR), the Island’s companies “support 57 percent of the U.S. crop insurance and reinsurance market.”

ACE is the second largest writer of crop insurance in the U.S. and conducts this line of business through Rain and Hail L.L.C., Inc., a major provider of risk management crop insurance programs to rural America.

“ACE maintains a well-diversified crop insurance book by product and geography and has been in this business for many years,” noted Brian Dowd, CEO of ACE’s North American Insurance operations. “In addition to reinsurance protection provided by the government, we are also protected by stop-loss reinsurance coverage we purchase on our portfolio from the private market. The recent floods are a tragic event and come at an inauspicious moment. They impact not just American farmers but the global population given current world food supply shortages.”

Source: ACE Limited – www.acelimited.com