Peter D. Hancock, AIG's president and chiefexecutive officer, has announced he is resigning from the titanP&C insurer.

Hancock, 57, will continue to serve as CEO until a successor hasbeen named. AIG's board will conduct a comprehensive search for asuccessor.

“I believe this is the right decision to make for the companyand all its stakeholders,” Hancock said in a statement. “Withoutwholehearted shareholder support for my continued leadership, aprotracted period of uncertainty could undermine the progress wehave made and damage the interests of our policyholders, employees,regulators, debtholders, and shareholders.”

See also: AIG headcount falls by 10,000 in 2016

Voices at the gate

Hancock has been beset by vocal shareholders desperate for areturn to AIG's previous industry-high profit margins. Its Q4results, announced on Valentine's Day, marked a critical crossroadsin Hancock's ambitious, two-year plan announcedin January 2016 designed to reverse AIG's fortunes.

Unfortunately, the carrier's net loss instead widened to $3.04billion, or $2.96 per share, in Q4, from $1.84 billion, or $1.50per share, a year earlier. The insurer has continued to sufferlosses in several key lines, among them commercial-vehicle coverand workers' compensation.

Activist investors Carl Icahn and JohnPaulson have maintained that AIG should be brokenup into three companies, one offering P&C coverage, anotherproviding life insurance and a third backing mortgages. A morescaled-back AIG, they theorize, would be a strong step toward theinsurer shedding its regulatory designation as a systemicallyimportant financial institution.

On Jan. 20, AIG announced it would pay about $10 billion toBerkshire Hathaway Inc. to assume risks of further losses on manyof those policies. It was posited that reinsurance deal couldgenerate a pretax gain of about $2.6 billion in Q1 2017 alone.

Icahn, who has been one of Hancock's loudest critics, tweetedthis morning that he supports the move. AIG's shares were up 1.75percent in premarket trading, following the announcement.

Who will succeed? The speculation game begins

“Peter's accomplishments at AIG, including his role in thecompany's turnaround and in driving shareholder value, areimmeasurable,” Douglas M. Steenland, AIG's chairman of the board,said in a statement. “He tackled the company's most complex issues,including the repayment of AIG's obligations to the U.S. Treasuryin full and with a profit, and is leaving AIG as a strong, focusedand profitable insurance company.”

AIG's board still has faith in Hancock's plan, said Steenland,adding that he remains committed to the financial targets andobjectives set forth by Hancock and his management team.

Among that team of executives at AIG is head of CommercialRobert Schimek, who could be in the running to succeed Hancock.NU profiled Schimek in March 2016, atwhich time Schimek said he was resolute that AIG would improve itscommercial property/casualty accident year loss ratio by sixpoints.

An insider at AIG told PropertyCasualty360.com that anyspeculation as to who would succeed Hancock is just that:speculation: “At this point, there is no heir apparent.”

Hancock was named president and CEO of AIG in September, 2014,when he was also elected to the its board. Before that, he servedas CEO of AIG Property Casualty. Hancock joined AIG in 2010 asexecutive vice president, Finance, Risk, and Investments.

“We are on course to deliver higher quality, more sustainableearnings and have dramatically reduced reserve risk,” Hancockadded. “The Board and I are confident in the ability of this teamto continue to execute our strategic plan and deliver strongresults.”