S&P Affirms Banner Life Ins and Affiliate 'AA' Rtgs.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 9, 2003

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that it affirmed its 'AA' counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on Banner Life Insurance Co. and William Penn Life Insurance Co. of NY based on the companies'

Standard & Poor's also said that the outlook on these companies is stable.

Together, Banner Life Insurance Co. and William Penn Life Insurance Co. of NY constitute the Legal & General America Group (LGA), which is the U.S. operation of Legal & General Group PLC (Legal & General; 'AA/Negative/A-1+'). Legal & General Assurance Society Ltd. ('AAA' financial strength rating), Legal & General's primary insurance entity, is a major U.K.-based life and pensions provider.

"Standard & Poor's anticipates LGA will remain a leading provider of brokerage term insurance, enabling the group to continue generating extremely strong GAAP earnings and to maintain extremely strong capital," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Jon Reichert.

LGA's management is successfully executing a strategy implemented in 1997 of focusing exclusively on selling term insurance to upper-middle-income consumers through the brokerage channel. LGA went from being a top 50 writer of term insurance in 1997 to being the second largest brokerage channel writer in 2001, and it maintained that position in 2002.

Complete ratings information is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect, Standard & Poor's Web-based credit analysis system, at www.ratingsdirect.com. All ratings affected by this rating action can be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site at www.standardandpoors.com; under Credit Ratings in the left navigation bar, select Credit Ratings Actions.

Copyright 2003, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services