Fitch Ratings has taken rating actions on Italian insurance group Assicurazioni Generali SpA (GENERALI) and removed them from Under Criteria Observation (UCO), where GENERALI was placed on 15 January 2019.

Fitch upgraded GENERALI's IFS (Issuer Financial Strength) credit rating to 'A' from 'A-' and affirmed the IDR (Issuer Default Rating) rating at 'A-'. The outlook remains negative on both ratings.

The upgrade on the IFS rating mainly stems from the removal of the sovereign cap following the adoption by Fitch of new rating criteria to capture country-related risks in insurance ratings. Specifically, Fitch moved away from the use of 'top-down' sovereign constraints to define how country risk is captured within each key credit factor under a bottom-up analysis.

A detailed presentation on Fitch's rating action can be found on here: https://www.fitchratings.com/site/pr/10064310