As major rating factors, Standard & Poor's list the following:

-         The central strategic role of the concern, and its central function as a reinsurer for the operative companies of the group.

-         The very strong position of the Group on the Austrian market. With Raiffeisen Versicherung and UNIQA Personenversicherung UNIQA is the clear market leader in life and health insurance, and with UNIQA Sachversicherung it is one of the leading  non-life insurers in Austria. Also, because of the limited growth possibilities deriving from the size of the Austrian market, the concern is also energetically pursuing an internationalization strategy, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in neighbouring countries. Currently the share of premium volume accounted for by the foreign companies is about 9% and in the medium term an increase to 15% is expected.

Prospects
Because of the poor results in the non-life sector in 2000, mainly due to the difficult Austrian market, especially in the field of motor vehicle insurance, Standard and Poor`s currently assess prospects critically. The cost situation was burdened in 2000 by the costs of the restructuring of the Group and the successful introduction of the UNIQA brand.

According to Standard & Poor´s, the strictly profit-oriented strategy introduced by the new management will lead to an improvement of the results within the next two years. As a goal, the return on equity (ROE) in 2002 should move significantly towards the medium-term Group target of 15%.