Moody’s Investors Service has given Iowa Health System a high credit rating with a stable outlook. Moody’s affirmed Aa3 underlying ratings to Iowa Health’s variable rate demand health facilities revenue bonds, citing its geographic diversity across Iowa and western Illinois as strengths. Iowa Health has nearly 20,000 employees in Iowa and annual revenues of $2 billion. The rating contrasted with Moody’s overall outlook for the nonprofit health-care sector, which it switched to negative from stable because the weak economy has produced investment losses by hospitals, an increase in uncompensated care and a drop in elective procedures.

Sales of indexed annuities increased 12.7 percent to $7.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007, according to AnnuitySpecs.com, a Pleasant Hill-based company that, along with its companion company, Advantage Group Associates Inc., develops and promotes indexed products. Total sales for 2008 were $26.7 billion, the second-highest sales year for the products. Aviva plc held the top spot in the market with an 18 percent share, AnnuitySpecs.com said in a news release.

General Growth Properties Inc. announced last Friday that it has defaulted on some of its loans, but its lenders have not yet taken any action, Reuters reported. General Growth, owner and developer of Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines, has been pressed since last year to repay $900 million of mortgages on two Las Vegas shopping malls. A forbearance agreement, in which the lenders agreed not to take any action, expired on Feb. 12, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The expiration of the forbearance agreements on the Las Vegas malls allows the lenders of the company’s $2.6 billion 2006 credit facility and 2008 secured portfolio facility to end their own forbearance agreements.

A federal judge has approved an $88 million settlement between Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. and plaintiffs in a lawsuit stemming from bid-rigging investigations in 2004 and 2005, BestWire reported. The settlement provides $69 million in payments to the plaintiffs and $19 million in legal fees.

Webster City native Steve Rasmussen, president and chief operating officer of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., has been named CEO, the company said in a news release. He replaces Jerry Jurgensen, who agreed to leave the company. Rasmussen has been president and chief operating officer of Nationwide Mutual and Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co. since 2003. He also has served as chairman, chief operating officer and director of Nationwide subsidiary Allied Group Inc.

ING Groep NV said today that it would meet interest payments on its bonds and is considering tapping into the U.S. bank bailout plan for its operations in this country, Reuters reported. The Dutch-based financial services firm also announced the appointment of Patrick Flynn as its chief financial officer.