AM Best has revised its outlook on the member companies of Berkshire Hathaway GUARD Insurance Companies to stable from negative, while affirming their Financial Strength Rating of A+ (Superior) and Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings of "aa-" (Superior).
The action, announced August 12, covers AmGUARD, EastGUARD, NorGUARD, WestGUARD and AZGUARD, which operate under an intercompany pooling agreement.
GUARD's own announcement of the update emphasizes the unchanged A+ rating as a signal of trust for agents, insureds and stakeholders. The outlook itself had carried a negative designation since August 2025, following underwriting losses across 2023, 2024 and 2025 that included material reserve strengthening in several lines, most notably commercial auto and business owners' policies.
AM Best's decision to move that outlook back to stable reflects an actual improvement in the rating agency's assessment of GUARD's trajectory, not simply a continuation of the status quo.
AM Best's prior negative outlook cited GUARD's sustained underwriting losses and the corrective steps the company had to take in response, including discontinuing its underperforming admitted personal lines business entirely and re-underwriting its commercial auto and BOP books.
The rating agency also noted that GUARD had installed an almost entirely new senior leadership team over the two years preceding that assessment, a team tasked specifically with restoring the company's operating performance to previously adequate levels.
AM Best's more recent commentary attributes the improved outlook to two factors working together: continued explicit and implicit financial support from GUARD's immediate parent, National Indemnity Company, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, and early positive results from the underwriting corrections the company implemented over the past two years.
AM Best has been explicit, however, that this improvement is recent and that it will continue monitoring GUARD's operating performance closely, with the possibility of further rating action if results fail to track with peer benchmarks despite the progress made so far.
For agents and brokers placing business with GUARD, the outlook shift is a more meaningful signal than the unchanged A+ rating alone suggests, since it indicates AM Best sees credible evidence that the underwriting problems driving losses in commercial auto and BOP over the past three years are being addressed rather than continuing to deteriorate.
That said, AM Best's own caveat about continued near-term monitoring is worth noting: a stable outlook reflects confidence in the trend so far, not a declaration that the turnaround is complete.
Agents with GUARD-placed commercial auto or BOP business in particular may want to stay attentive to how the carrier's pricing and underwriting appetite in those specific lines continues evolving, given that those two products were the ones singled out for reserve strengthening and corrective re-underwriting over the period this outlook change now reflects the results of.
