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Forward Looking Statement
CNA Financial Corporation (CNAF) was incorporated in 1967 and is an insurance holding company whose primary subsidiaries consist of property
and casualty insurance companies. Collectively, CNAF and its subsidiaries are referred to as CNA or the Company. CNA's property and casualty
insurance operations are conducted by Continental Casualty Company (CCC), incorporated in 1897, and its affiliates, and The Continental Insurance
Company (CIC), organized in 1853, and its affiliates. CIC became an affiliate of the Company in 1995 as a result of the acquisition of The
Continental Corporation (Continental). Life and group insurance operations, which were either sold or are being managed as a run-off operation,
are conducted within CCC and Continental Assurance Company (CAC).
This web site includes a number of statements which relate to anticipated future events (forward-looking statements) rather than actual present
conditions or historical events. You can identify forward-looking statements because generally they include words such as “believes”, “expects”,
“intends”, “anticipates”, “estimates”, and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this web site include any and all statements
regarding expected developments in the Company’s insurance business, including losses and loss reserves for asbestos, environmental pollution
and mass tort claims which are more uncertain, and therefore more difficult to estimate than loss reserves respecting traditional property and
casualty exposures; the impact of routine ongoing insurance reserve reviews the Company is conducting; the ongoing state regulatory examinations
of the Company’s primary insurance company subsidiaries, and the Company’s responses to the results of those reviews and examinations; the
Company’s expectations concerning its revenues, earnings, expenses and investment activities; expected cost savings and other results from the
Company’s expense reduction and restructuring activities; and the Company’s proposed actions in response to trends in its business.
Forward-looking statements, by their nature, are subject to a variety of inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to
differ materially from the results projected in the forward-looking statement. Many of these risks and uncertainties cannot be controlled by the
Company. Some examples of these risks and uncertainties are:
- general economic and business conditions, including inflationary pressures on medical care costs, construction costs and other economic
sectors that increase the severity of claims;
- changes in financial markets such as fluctuations in interest rates, long-term periods of low interest rates, credit conditions and
currency, commodity and stock prices;
- the effects of corporate bankruptcies, such as Enron and WorldCom, on surety bond claims, as well as on capital markets, and on the
markets for directors and officers and errors and omissions coverages;
- changes in foreign or domestic political, social and economic conditions;
- regulatory initiatives and compliance with governmental regulations, judicial decisions, including interpretation of policy provisions,
decisions regarding coverage and theories of liability, trends in litigation and the outcome of any litigation involving the Company,
and rulings and changes in tax laws and regulations;
- effects upon insurance markets and upon industry business practices and relationships of current litigation, investigations and regulatory
activity by the New York State Attorney General’s office and other authorities concerning contingent commission arrangements with brokers
and bid solicitation activities;
- regulatory limitations and restrictions upon the Company, including the effects of assessments and other surcharges for guaranty funds
and second-injury funds and other mandatory pooling arrangements;
- the impact of competitive products, policies and pricing and the competitive environment in which the Company operates, including changes
in the Company’s books of business;
- product and policy availability and demand and market responses, including the level of ability to obtain rate increases and decline or
non-renew under priced accounts, to achieve premium targets and profitability and to realize growth and retention estimates;
- development of claims and the impact on loss reserves, including changes in claim settlement practices;
- the effectiveness of current initiatives by claims management to reduce loss and expense ratio through more efficacious claims handling
techniques;
- the performance of reinsurance companies under reinsurance contracts with the Company;
- results of financing efforts, including the availability of bank credit facilities;
- changes in the Company’s composition of operating segments;
- weather and other natural physical events, including the severity and frequency of storms, hail, snowfall and other winter conditions,
as well as of natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes;
- man-made disasters, including the possible occurrence of terrorist attacks and the effect of the absence of applicable terrorism
legislation on coverages;
- the possibility that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 will not be extended beyond the end of 2005, as a result of which the
Company could incur substantial additional exposure to losses resulting from terrorist attacks, which could be increased by current state
regulatory restrictions on terrorism policy exclusions and by regulatory unwillingness to approve such exclusions prospectively;
- the occurrence of epidemics;
- exposure to liabilities due to claims made by insureds and others relating to asbestos remediation and health-based asbestos
impairments, and exposure to liabilities for environmental pollution, mass tort, and construction defect claims;
- whether a national privately financed trust to replace litigation of asbestos claims with payments to claimants from the trust will be
established or approved through federal legislation, or, if established and approved, whether it will contain funding requirements in excess of
the Company’s established loss reserves or carried loss reserves;
- the sufficiency of the Company’s loss reserves and the possibility of future increases in reserves;
- regulatory limitations and restrictions, including limitations upon the Company’s ability to receive dividends from its insurance
subsidiaries imposed by state regulatory agencies and minimum risk-based capital standards established by the National Association of
Insurance Commissioners;
- the risks and uncertainties associated with the Company’s loss reserves;
- the level of success in integrating acquired businesses and operations, and in consolidating, or selling existing ones;
- the possibility of further changes in the Company’s ratings by ratings agencies, including the inability to access certain markets or
distribution channels and the required collateralization of future payment obligations as a result of such changes, and changes in rating
agency policies and practices;
- and the actual closing of contemplated transactions and agreements.
Any forward-looking statements made in this web site are made by the Company only as of the date of their original release by the Company and
the Company does not have any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the
date of their original release, even if the Company’s expectations or any related events or circumstances change. Any links to or material
from other web sites is provided solely for convenience and is not an endorsement of any products, services, or information available on,
from or through such other web sites.
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