continued from page 25
F
2010
self on the fly” as its fourth-biggest story of 2009.
FEBRUARY 2010
A AIG reports a net loss of
$12.3 billion for 2009, a
drastic improvement over its
2008 net loss of $100.4 billion. Benmosche says many
of the company’s businesses have begun to recover.
APRIL 2010
A SEC filings reveal AIG’s
displeasure with pay czar
Kenneth Feinberg’s limita-
tions on compensation. The
company cites 2009 cuts
to planned compensation
for Chartis’ Moor and AIG
CFO David Herzog, saying
it “is concerned that the
limited current pay under the
special master’s structure
prevents AIG from offering
competitive compensation
opportunities for these
employees.”
MAY 2010
A AIG reports a 2010
first-quarter profit of $1.45
billion, compared to a
2009 first-quarter net loss
of $4.35 billion. Benmosche cites improvement at
Chartis, as income before
net-realized capital gains for
THOMAS J. CROWLEY
PARTNER, MARAN CORPORATE RISK ASSOCIATES INC.
CHAIRMAN-ELECT OF THE INDEPENDENT
INSURANCE AGENTS & BROKERS OF NEW YORK INC.
As an agency we deal with Chartis for their high-value personal-lines portfolio of products: their home, auto, umbrella, all of that. We do deal with Chartis commercially on a
brokerage basis generally.
We had a pretty significant book of busi-
ness with the old AIG with personal lines, and
I remember when the announcement came
through [of the bailout] and that kind of panic
set in, we had a lot of our clients who con-
tacted us and said, “What’s going on? I want
to move—get my insurance out of there.”
We sent a preemptive strike, an email to
everybody, advising them of the protections
they were afforded through the New York
State Insurance Department and the messages
we were receiving from AIG. We told them,
“We’re happy to move you if that’s the way you feel and if you must have
your insurance moved,” but we recommended they ride out the storm and
see how things developed.
Looking back at this, I think that AIG did a fantastic job. They rebranded
themselves as Chartis, so now if you’re buying homeowners’ insurance and
auto, you’re not buying from AIG, you’re buying from Chartis. A lot of
people don’t even realize that it’s the same organization.
The same thing with workers’ comp—they did a very good job there. To
us as the agent and to the consumer, it was a very smooth transition. It was
obviously a little scary there in the first months, but they did a very good
job of making the transition as smooth as possible. It was easy for the client
and for us. They worked very hard to rebrand and make sure they were able
to make that division financially independent. With good reinsurance and
good underwriting values, they’ve done a phenomenal job. You shouldn’t
look at Chartis as AIG, because they’ve created, in a sense, separate silos,
and you don’t have to worry anymore about that financial situation they
were in back then.
continued on page 28
the unit grows 24 percent to
$879 million.
JUNE 2010
A At the S&P Insurance
Conference in New York,
in a discussion about the
lingering soft market, John
Molbeck, president and CEO
of Houston-based HCC Insur-
ance Holdings, points out
that this is the first market
in 30 years where AIG is not
“out in front leading” the
pricing trends. “When AIG de-
cided to change the pricing,
the market was able to follow
along. This will be the first
market cycle where we don’t
have that event,” he says.
His comments prompt John
Doyle, president and CEO
of Chartis U.S., to say at a
later session, “I have come
to learn over the last 18
months that we’re responsible for all that ails the
insurance industry.”
JULY 2010
A Chartis brings all of its European operations together
under one regional management team headquartered
in London in preparation
for the Solvency II regulatory
structure. Under Chartis’
new European structure,
country operations report
to one of three managing
directors, and the manag-
ing directors report to Lex
continued on page 28
