AIG Insurance

AIG, or the American International Group, is the world’s leading financial and insurance institution with a marketing and business presence in more than 130 countries around the world. AIG affiliate companies are engaged in commercial, institutional and individual services through one of the most extensive global property-casualty and life insurance networks on earth. 

In the US, AIG companies comprise the largest underwriters of industrial and commercial insurers with the AIG American General as the leading insurance company. Its global businesses reach spans financial services, retirement services and asset management. AIG’s financial services include aircraft leasing, financial products and trading. AIG’s growing global consumer finance business is led in the United States by American General Finance and has one of the largest retirement services through AIG Sun America and the AIG VALIC, a market leader in asset management for the personal and institutional markets with investment management capabilities in fixed income, equities, alternative investments and real estate.

AIG is listed on the NYSC and in the London, Paris, Swiss and Tokyo stock exchanges. AIG also acts as the principal sponsor of Manchester United English football team as well as the Japan Open Tennis Championships.

Corporate History
AIG’s history started back in 1919 when Cornelius Vander Starr put up an insurance company in Shanghai, China. As the first westerner to sell insurance to the Chinese, Starr succeeded in growing the business and eventually expanded his services to Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

In 1968, Starr named Maurice R. Greenberg his successor, having worked with him since 1962 and introduced new ways of conducting insurance business in America. A year later the company went public. In February 2005, Greenberg resigned as the company’s head.

Sports Sponsorship
In April 2006, AIG announced its principal sponsorship of the English football team Manchester United in a record deal of £56.5 million (£14.1 million a year) over the next four years.

Business Focus
AIG’s insurance business model rests on the concept of underwriting profit which underpins modern insurance business.  Its focus is to maintain sufficient investment returns on premiums before any claim is paid out ensuring that the premiums taken together offset any claims.  Maurice Greenberg believed that it was necessary for an insurance company to make an underwriting profit, even though typically most insurance companies do not.

Business Holdings
In the main insurance business, AIG owns AIG American General, a life insurance company based in Houston, Texas. Its affiliate American General Life Insurance Company owns Matrix Direct Insurance Services considered as one of the largest direct marketers of term life insurance.

AIG owns International Lease Finance Corporation, the world’s largest aircraft leasing company with hundreds of aircraft ranging from the Airbus A319s to the Boeing 747s. Through various affiliates, AIG owns nearly 100% of 21st Century Insurance Group whose business insures motor vehicles and personal umbrella policies. Its home office is in Woodland Hills California.

Overseas, AIG owns the American International Assurance or AIA and is based in Hong Kong. AIG directly owns 9.9% of People’s Insurance Company in China and about 20% of all its subsidiaries. Since May 2007, AIG have made substantial investments in the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company and Vivatel, the third largest Bulgarian mobile phone operator. AIG also owns Ocean Finance, a UK based company dealing with home owner loans, mortgages and re-mortgages.  GP

With more than 100,000 people employed in over 130 countries, AIG and its affiliates have made it their policy to strive for a work environment that foster the needed skills and enthusiasm to support their global leadership in finance and insurance.
Employee programs are the key to AIG’s ability to attract and retain the best talents in the industry.  By providing opportunities for advancement, skills training and a balanced work life, AIG can realize the full potential of its diverse workforce. As a leading insurance company, AIG aims to manage risk for their clients and employees, offering benefits that create more productive and healthier worksites.

A Multinational Workforce
Ever since the AIG was founded in Shanghai in 1919, the company and its affiliates have strived to preserve its principles of leadership, commitment and innovation. The AIG companies have earned a reputation in the industries they operate for attracting and developing the best local talent and maintaining an  entrepreneurial innovative approach to their way of doing business anywhere on the planet.  As an Equal Opportunity Employer, the AIG companies thrive on a diverse culturally rich workforce that makes their vision and strategies a reality worldwide.

Training and Development
Career development is one unique hallmark of the AIG employee family. At AIG, a job is more than just a place to earn a paycheck. It is part of a larger vision that inspires its people to grow with the company. Employee career growth is fostered. Continuous training programs ensure this objective is met whenever possible.  Using both traditional and state-of-the-art training programs, AIG has led the way in career development in the insurance industries.  These programs include Executive development training, ethics compliance training, leadership and management training, as well as medical health maintenance programs

Health and Safety
AIG takes occupational safety and the overall employee health and well-being quite seriously. With a straight aim to a safe and healthy worksite, AIG initiates health, wellness and safety programs for its people anywhere it operates. By raising employee awareness of health issues and adopting healthy lifestyles, AIG has strived to maintain a healthy quality life for its employees and their families.

The Extended AIG Family
AIG always maintains it position as a socially responsible global employer. To this end, AIG has human resource initiatives worldwide aimed at strengthening employees’ family relations.  Since employee morale and productivity rest on the contentment of their families, the employee family is taken in as part of the AIG family. 

Partnership for Eldercare
In 1992, AIG participated with Partnership for Eldercare, a program of the Fund for Aging Services, Inc., which makes services available at no charge to employees who are balancing responsibilities at work with their commitment to taking care of their elders. In 2004, the New York State Office for the Aging recognized AIG as a “Caregiver Friendly Employer” for practices and policies that support caregivers within its business and the community
All these programs for AIG’s employees have likewise been initiated in other countries where AIG operates.  The philosophies underpinning these initiatives are global in scope and tempered by the local realities as well as cultural differences in the global village. GP

AIG’s social commitment gets a thorough test in times of calamities anywhere on earth.  The company has set up the AIG Disaster Relief Fund (”DRF”) as a global charitable organization engaged in a wide range of philanthropic efforts that include providing relief to victims of manmade and natural disasters and emergencies around the world. The DRF is funded by direct contributions from AIG employees that are matched by the company dollar for dollar. Together, AIG and its employees contributed well over $10 million in 2005-2006, apart from giving volunteer hours during relief operations as well as long-term rebuilding engagements to disaster-stricken communities. The DRF is based in New York as a non-profit charitable organization 

The Indian Ocean Tsunami
  On December 26, 2004, a devastating tsunami resulting from a magnitude 9.3 earthquake under the Indian Ocean devastated communities and obliterated livelihoods along the Indian Ocean coasts.  AIG and its employees through the DRF, partnered with Give2Asia and local organizations to respond immediately with emergency relief supplies.  Infrastructure restoration came later with about $4.1 million in total contributions.

Some AIG DRF highlights: 

• The DRF provided $500,000 to reconstruct Penayong Market in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, the largest fresh food and fish marketplace in the country..
• In Aceh Itara, small fish ponds reaching 60,000 hectares were obliterated. The DRF together with local charities are training farmers and creating sustainable income sources in the community.
• On Sarai Island, Thailand, the DRF have enabled villagers to build a community center and a new emergency shelter.
• In Krabi, Thailand, the DRF is providing technical support, financial assistance, and legal aid for individuals and communities undertaking land disputes that arose after the Tsunami.
• The DRF has assisted to build about 100 new homes in Tamil Nadu on India’s southeast coast.
  

Devastation in Indonesia
  During the May 2006 earthquake that hit Yogya, Indonesia, AIG doled out $1 million to provide relief efforts in regions where AIG Companies have any marketing or business presence. AIG directed DRF funds to Indonesian charities that delivered the monetary assistance effectively.

 South Asian Earthquake
  On October 8, 2005, an earthquake destroyed parts of Northern India and Pakistan as well as surrounding Southern Afghanistan, killing 73,000 people, injuring about 70,000 more and leaving about 3.5 million people homeless. The DRF contributed $1.3 in support of relief efforts, working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Rescue Committee to deliver food, shelter, medicines and materials to rebuild houses for displaced persons.  

Hurricane Katrina
When Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August 2005 causing unprecedented destruction to the coastlines of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the DRF immediately responded with more than $3 million in contributions that were directed to local emergency funds and charities for Katrina relief efforts. 

Some highlights:

• AIG’s Domestic Brokerage Group initiated the “Assist-a Family” to help colleagues affected by Hurricane Katrina. 43 employees and their families have received employee-donated assistance. 
• AIG American General and the AIG Retirement Services provided relief assistance to displaced Hurricane Katrina victims. Houston-based AIG employees volunteered to assist Astrodome evacuees.
• AIG sent two truckloads of warehoused office furniture to the Mississippi Small Business Chamber of Commerce and to displaced business people in Louisiana.

AIG assisted its own displaced employees by relocating them in companies near their new homes.   GP

With its affiliates throughout the world, AIG fulfills a social commitment of providing charitable contributions in local communities. The AIG Corporate Giving Program as well as other subsidiaries listed below has embarked on sophisticated programs to assist local needs of communities where it operates.
American International Assurance Company, Ltd. (AIA)
AIG American General
Hartford Steam Boiler
Nan Shan Life Insurance Company, Ltd.AIG Corporate Giving Program
The Corporate Giving Program enables AIG to invest its human and financial muscle in visionary institutions that share the AIG values for innovation, integrity and leadership. AIG’s proud tradition of investing in new markets underpins its vision to building working relations across social, political, economic and cultural barriers to better or to enrich civic lives and contribute to community development where it matters the most.AIG’s strategic focus is to leverage its business expertise to provide lasting contribution to spur economic activity and growth and enhance communities’ lives in many areas where it operates. The company’s long history for civic involvement continues with the following major initiatives in:

• Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment
• Independence for People with Disabilities
• Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief
• Strategic Health and Education Initiatives

AIG also lends its support to nonprofit non-government organization in other areas of economic development. It prioritizes its civic engagement wherever AIG has businesses and where its people’s involvement can best achieve a value-added presence.AIG employees around the world pride in a tradition of support for communities adversely affected by natural calamities. The AIG Disaster Relief Fund created in 2001 matches’ employee contributions dollar for dollar that essentially doubles the fund to enables the fast and efficient deployment of relief goods and services to devastated communities.On top of these regular charity works, AIG supports employee communities with a Matching Gift Program as well as a range of philanthropic volunteer programs initiated by AIG colleagues worldwide.AIG’s philanthropic resources are prioritized and allocated to projects that fit its strategic corporate focus. Most of the philanthropic grants are initiated by AIG without the need for solicitations. AIG does not support individual requests for grants, nor does it entertain requests from organizations with political agenda or those that espouse sectarian objectives for political gain or those that are inconsistent with AIG’s policies of racial and religious non-discrimination. While letters for grants can be sent to the corporate.giving@aig.com in PDF or word format, unsolicited proposals are not accepted and AIG will respond only if there is interest for a full proposal.

AIG has given a long-standing support to Orbis International, a global organization with a network of community care to saving and restoring the gift of sight to countless people. Since 1982, Orbis volunteers of nurses, doctors and philanthropists have been working to restore sight and transform the lives of hundred of thousands of people in over 80 countries worldwide.Together with the Flying Eye Hospital, a converted DC-10 jet brings eye-care professionals to depressed countries. AIG has championed medical eye care and sponsored fund-raising initiatives in the US. AIG’s affiliate Nan Shan based in Taiwan has similar commitments that include educational programs and fund-raising activities to educate college students on the proper care of eye sight as well pediatric engagements in Vietnam. GP

The American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is one of the world leaders in insurance and financial services. It is the leading international insurance organization with operations in more than 130 countries and jurisdictions. AIG insurance companies serve commercial, institutional and individual customers through the most extensive worldwide property-casualty and life insurance networks of any insurer. In addition, AIG insurance companies are leading providers of retirement services, financial services and asset management around the world. AIG’s common stock is listed in the U.S. on the New York Stock Exchange as well as the stock exchanges in Paris, Switzerland and Tokyo.

The AIG insurance companies can help you acquire the accident and health insurance coverage you need to protect yourself and your family from unforeseen risks. Their coverages include critical illness, cancer, long-term care and disability insurance as well as other supplemental health benefits.

A variety of products worldwide that are tailored to meet the individual needs of the local market. AIU manages AIG’s overseas property-casualty operations for consumer and commercial clients. The most extensive foreign network of any insurance organization, AIU stretches across Asia and the Pacific to Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Using AIU First Notice of Loss Reporting, you can report a loss through the internet, 24 / 7 and forward it directly for processing to a qualified AIU Claims Representative who will expedite the claim and address all your concerns.

Basic and specialty insurance policies to protect properties owned by your business. The AIG business protection provides you the customized business continuity planning, all-hazards consulting and business intelligence to assist enterprises worldwide assess and limit their exposure to business disruptions caused by both natural and man-made events.

The AIG insurance companies are also the frontrunners when they come to technology as well. If you have a teen in the house driving your car, no doubt your insurance rates are reflecting that. Parents like to keep track of their kids when they are out on the road, and AIG insurance is piloting a new program that will help with that. This program will involve GPS trackers being placed on cars that teenagers are driving, and it will not only monitor where the teen is at, but it will also monitor their driving as well. If you have a teen, then AIG auto insurance is starting some great programs that you may like.