S&P Global Ratings on Aug. 7 revised the South Africa national scale ratings of 10 local insurers and removed the "under criteria observation" identifier on the ratings.

The agency revised the national scale ratings of American International Group Inc. units AIG Life South Africa Ltd. and AIG South Africa, Allianz Group unit Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty South Africa Ltd., Sanlam Life Insurance Ltd. and Santam Ltd. to zaAAA from zaAA-.

S&P also revised the long- and short-term South Africa national scale ratings of Standard Bank Group Ltd. unit Liberty Group Ltd. and Old Mutual Plc unit Old Mutual Life Assurance Co. (South Africa) Ltd. to zaAAA/zaA-1+ from zaAA-/zaA-1.

At the same time, the national scale rating of Sanlam Ltd. was revised to zaA+ from zaBBB, while that of General Insurance Corp. of India unit GIC Re South Africa Ltd. was revised to zaAA+ from zaA+.

Additionally, S&P revised the local-currency financial strength rating of Santam Structured Insurance Ltd. to zaAA from zaA.

The ratings actions, which followed S&P's recalibration of the national mapping scale for South Africa, do not reflect any change in the agency's view of the fundamental credit quality of the insurers, whose global scale issuer and issue credit ratings were not affected by the ratings actions.

S&P Global Ratings and S&P Global Market Intelligence are owned by S&P Global Inc.