Morgan Stanley raised its outlook on the U.S. life insurance industry to “attractive” from “in-line,” Reuters reported. It also upgraded its rating on Principal Financial Group Inc. to “overweight” from “equal-weight,” saying concerns about its capital and liquidity have decreased after its recent debt and equity offerings. For the entire sector, the firm said fears about life insurers having enough capital to cover losses have diminished, and it predicted that companies could report an average increase in book values of a little more than 20 percent when they report second-quarter earnings.

Durable goods orders in the United States rose 1.9 percent last month as increases in automobile demand and defense spending offset declines in business equipment orders, Bloomberg reported. According to a Commerce Department report, the increase was the largest since December 2007 and followed a revised 2.1 percent decrease in March. Excluding transportation, orders rose 0.8 percent. Economists had predicted orders would rise 0.5 percent, according to a Bloomberg survey.

Fitch Ratings affirmed its “B” Issuer Default Rating for Mediacom Communications Corp. and its subsidiaries Mediacom LLC and Mediacom Broadband LLC and set an outlook for all of Mediacom’s ratings as stable. This includes the company’s Iowa operations. The rating affects about $3.4 billion of debt as of March 31. Fitch said it expects Mediacom to experience positive cash flow this year, which will help it pay off about $93 million of scheduled amortization from its subsidiary credit facilities. However, its service penetration levels and average revenue per user trails industry leaders, Fitch said, and the company faces strong competition from direct broadcast satellite operators. Fitch claimed the cable operator’s key to maintaining its position in the industry will be its ability to efficiently manage the bandwidth of its cable plant to maximize the amount of high-definition programming the company can provide to its subscriber base and the key to its stable liquidity position is its available borrowing capacity from subsidiary credit facilities.

A.M. Best Co. has affirmed its A (excellent) financial strength rating and stable outlook for Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. and Western Agriculture Insurance Co. “In spite of a challenging economy and the worst storm season in our company’s history in 2008, we again outperformed the property-casualty insurance industry,” said Bruce Trost, executive vice president of Farm Bureau Mutual Group, in a release. The company said that although direct written premiums for the property-casualty insurance industry decreased to $489 billion in 2008, Farm Bureau’s premiums rose more than $1.1 billion compared with its 2007 totals.

A.M Best Co. affirmed Delta Dental of Iowa’s financial strength rating of A- (stable) for its consistent operating income and capitalization growth over the past five years. The rating also reflects the company’s leading market share in Iowa.

The Belin Quartet, managed by the Civic Music Association, will begin its free concert series this week. For 10 weeks, the group will play starting around noon on Fridays at Nollen Plaza or on the Central Library lawn. This week’s performance will be at Nollen Plaza. For more information, go to www.civicmusic.org.