While dozens of insurance companies made big news in 2011, none could come close to matching the sheer quantity of headlines grabbed by AIG—the recipient of an $182 billion government bailout and an industry giant whose Chartis division is one of the key P&C players.
The roller-coaster year started strong when in January AIG CEO Robert Benmosche declared that despite its financial challenges, the beleaguered multinational insurance corporation could "see the finish line" as it continued to pay down its debt to the Federal Reserve and raised money from private investors.
The comeback continued with more good news in February when AIG reported strong earnings of $11.2 billion for the fourth quarter of 2010.
But that same month saw some bad news as well: The company announced it would record a $4.1 billion charge for 4Q 2010 to bolster loss reserves for Chartis. The decision was made after the company's year-end review of loss reserves.
In March, Chartis shook itself up with a reorganization of the structure of its management team, with Peter Hancock replacing Kristian Moor as CEO (Moor would become vice chairman).
Hancock, who designed the bailed-out company's recapitalization plan, earned a slot on the cover of NU's Sept. 19 issue when he gave his first in-depth interview about his vision for the company.
In August, Benmosche appeared on CNBC and declared "mission accomplished"—or something close to it. AIG posted 2Q net income of $1.8 billion (compared to a net loss of $2.7 billion for the second quarter a year before), and he announced AIG had "turned the corner, and our crisis is over.
"We're independent of government support," he added during the 2Q earnings call. "It's all been collateralized. And we're done."
Currently, the U.S. Treasury, as part of the recapitalization plan, owns about 77 percent of AIG, but the company has no outstanding debt to the government.
But by 3Q, AIG had reported a loss of $4.1 billion (the company's worst since 2009), driven by declines in equity markets, widening credit spreads and lower interest rates.
Still, AIG remains at least a 780-pound, if not 800-pound, P&C gorilla. While the company slipped to the sixth position in NU's annual ranking of the Top 100 insurance groups by net-premium written (from fourth the year before and second in 2007), Chartis, despite the hurdles faced by its parent company, has found a way to maintain market-leadership positions in multiple lines.
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