TSC Ratings' Updates: HCC Insurance

The following ratings' changes were generated on September 22.

HCC Insurance Holding(HCC Quote) has been upgraded from hold to buy. HCC Insurance Holdings, together with its subsidiaries, provides property and casualty, surety, group life, accident, and health insurance coverage, and related agency and reinsurance brokerage services to commercial customers and individuals. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, relatively strong performance when compared with the S&P 500 during the past year and notable return on equity. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow

HCC's debt-to-equity ratio is very low at 0.14 and is currently below that of the industry average, implying that there has been very successful management of debt levels. ...