Speaker 1: For many years, the most successful insurance company in the
Speaker 1: world was AIG, and then the Great Recession came and
Speaker 1: AIG required a one hundred and eighty three billion dollar
Speaker 1: bailout from the US government. That bailout has now been
Speaker 1: repaid with interest and AIG is reshaped into a smaller
Speaker 1: but very successful insurance company being led by Peter Sofino.
Speaker 1: I had a chance to sit down with Peter and
Speaker 1: his offices in New York to talk about the new AIG. So,
Speaker 1: for those who aren't familiar with property and casualty insurers,
Speaker 1: what do they really do well?
Speaker 2: We ensure businesses small, medium, large commercial businesses for their
Speaker 2: property insurance or their auto or financial lines, which is
Speaker 2: directors and officers. And we also have a business that
Speaker 2: does harder to place business you know, such as like
Speaker 2: you know, contractors or you know, businesses that may not
Speaker 2: find its way into the conventional business. And we also
Speaker 2: have a Lloyd syndicate and we're a big part of
Speaker 2: Lloyd's as well.
Speaker 1: So as I understand the insurance business, they're really two
Speaker 1: parts to it. One is the part of assessing the
Speaker 1: risk and charging premiums that hopefully will for the maturest
Speaker 1: point of view, cover the risk, and the second is
Speaker 1: taking those premiums and investing it and hopefully getting a
Speaker 1: good way to return. So let's talk about the first part.
Speaker 1: So in the first part of assessing risks, is it
Speaker 1: harder today because inflation is so high to assess the
Speaker 1: risk that you might have in ensuring somebody's home or
Speaker 1: property at.
Speaker 2: A property and casualty company. It's much more complicated to
Speaker 2: get the underwriting right than it is the investment side.
Speaker 2: And you're right, with inflation, the complexity of cyber risk
Speaker 2: today and other factors such as global warming, catastrophes, you know,
Speaker 2: the dynamic of what happened after the pandemic with density
Speaker 2: and peak zone areas such as Florida, California. So understanding
Speaker 2: your balance sheet and your aggregates with what you're underwriting
Speaker 2: is complicated. You need people with a lot of experience
Speaker 2: and a lot of you know, good judgment in terms
Speaker 2: of making underwriting choices.
Speaker 1: If somebody says climate change does not really hear, they
Speaker 1: haven't talked to a property and casually ensure I gess right.
Speaker 2: That's corrected, then that is true. Five out of the
Speaker 2: last six years, we've had over one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 2: of natural disaster losses in our industry that's never happened before.
Speaker 1: What about artificial intelligence is artificial intelligence is going to
Speaker 1: enable you and others to say we have enough information
Speaker 1: to know exactly what something is going to be worth
Speaker 1: there in terms of ensuring it or not.
Speaker 2: Artificial intelligence is finding its way into our business in
Speaker 2: a variety of different factors. I think the first piece
Speaker 2: is getting much better insight into data, which allows us
Speaker 2: to make better decisions on underwriting. It's also a great
Speaker 2: opportunity to service business better in terms of like call
Speaker 2: centers and different ways of what's using robotics and other
Speaker 2: AI will be very helpful. But it is an emerging
Speaker 2: practice within the industry and one that is evolving very quickly.
Speaker 2: So it's also going to present risks that you know
Speaker 2: other companies how they use it and how they use
Speaker 2: large language models and making sure the decision making is
Speaker 2: very sound. So it's complicated, but definitely is benefiting the
Speaker 2: business today.
Speaker 1: Now, the insurance industry has a reputation maybe undeserved. For
Speaker 1: let's say somebody has a claim their house burned down
Speaker 1: or something, and the insurance adjuster comes out and says, well,
Speaker 1: it really wasn't worth as much as you think, or
Speaker 1: the damage wasn't as great. Is that a big problem anymore?
Speaker 1: Or is that an unfair image?
Speaker 2: I think it's an unfair image. I think it probably
Speaker 2: perhaps is true you know years ago, but today you
Speaker 2: know the contracts are you know much more? You know clear,
Speaker 2: you know paying claims.
Speaker 1: That's what we do.
Speaker 2: I mean, we underwrite risks, but you know when we
Speaker 2: have to show up in moments of matters in terms
Speaker 2: of how we pay our claims, and the amount of
Speaker 2: disputes are very small as a percentage of our overall portfolio.
Speaker 2: And I don't think that that's a fair assessment.
Speaker 1: So when you make a judgment that you're going to
Speaker 1: charge somebody a certain premium, you think that you'll probably
Speaker 1: make a little profit or some profit on the premium,
Speaker 1: and generally you are you doing that now?
Speaker 2: Yes? I mean you know that's not been AIG's passed.
Speaker 2: From two thousand and nine to twenty nineteen, it lost
Speaker 2: over thirty billion dollars in underwriting and so coming I
Speaker 2: arrived in twenty seventeen with a great team that followed
Speaker 2: me here and we began that underwriting journey, and so
Speaker 2: now we do make underrunting profits. So for every dollar
Speaker 2: we underwrite risk, you know, we make around you know,
Speaker 2: ten to twelve cents of profit without the investment income.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the investment income. So you bring in
Speaker 1: these premiums and all insurers then invest it and you
Speaker 1: get great and people do invest it, I assume for you.
Speaker 1: So what kind of return are you looking for on
Speaker 1: your investment portfolio.
Speaker 2: Seventy five percent of the portfolio tends to be fixed income,
Speaker 2: and so in this new interest rate environment, actually the
Speaker 2: investment income is going up, and then the remaining portion
Speaker 2: will be in some form of alternative investments, such as
Speaker 2: private equity or commercial real estate. And that's done very conservatively.
Speaker 2: But we really are not going to win on just
Speaker 2: the investment income. You really need to make an underwriting profit.
Speaker 2: So we balance both, you know, very well.
Speaker 1: So I should say private equity. My own firm does
Speaker 1: have a relationship with AIG. So of course you can't
Speaker 1: put more too much money in private decay, right, Your
Speaker 1: investment professionals can't put too much money in that area.
Speaker 2: Right, Absolutely, they do a great job.
Speaker 1: So in terms of the investment return, though generally are
Speaker 1: all insurers now basically making money both on investment return
Speaker 1: and on premium underwriting? Is that? But basically the core
Speaker 1: of the.
Speaker 2: Business, generally speaking, the industry is making underrunning profit on
Speaker 2: it's underwriting, and it's on the investment side as well.
Speaker 1: So it's often said that Lloyd's of London, which would
Speaker 1: ensure almost anything. So are there things that you won't
Speaker 1: ensure If somebody comes to you and says I'm worried
Speaker 1: about my wedding being rained out or something like that,
Speaker 1: is there any kind of insurance that you won't provide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are very specific in terms of what we
Speaker 2: want to underwrite. I mean it has to be where
Speaker 2: we have skill, where we can deploy capital and get
Speaker 2: a fair return. So we don't really reflect the way
Speaker 2: Lloyd's can ensure almost anything. It's much more, you know,
Speaker 2: a traditional specialty company that would have real strong expertise
Speaker 2: in scale in the areas that we underwrite.
Speaker 1: So housing insurance is a big part of your business,
Speaker 1: I assume, So what is the biggest risk for you
Speaker 1: in providing insurance of people's homes.
Speaker 2: Well, the complexity has been the density built up in
Speaker 2: areas that have significant exposure if you think about the
Speaker 2: southeast of the United States, for wind or wildfire in California,
Speaker 2: what happened as a effect of the pandemic is that
Speaker 2: you know, people were moving into those areas, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'll make it up, but you know, a two and
Speaker 2: a half million dollar house costs five million during the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and people knocked down and put up a ten. So
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you had all this density in
Speaker 2: areas that were already challenged to have enough insurance to
Speaker 2: be able to respond to the individual homeowners. So I
Speaker 2: think it's just become more complex. Add in you know,
Speaker 2: more frequency of hurricanes and wildfire, and you just have
Speaker 2: a market that is under a little bit of stress.
Speaker 1: And property and casualty that is separate than automobile insurance.
Speaker 1: An auto would go into you do auto and bill insurance? Yes,
Speaker 1: And is that a risky business to be in these days?
Speaker 1: Or drivers getting better? Or what about people that supposedly
Speaker 1: don't have cars that don't have drivers. Are you worried
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: I am worried about that. I mean, you know, driverless
Speaker 2: vehicles are a big exposure, but but I think that
Speaker 2: you know, with AI quality of vehicles it's more predictable
Speaker 2: than perhaps it was in the past.
Speaker 1: So for your own home, who provides home insurance for you?
Speaker 1: Ai g oh? And if you have a claim, do
Speaker 1: you have any problem getting it paid?
Speaker 2: Or I haven't had a claim, but I rather claim
Speaker 2: I think I don't think I would.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how you got into the insurance business.
Speaker 1: So your father was in the business, and did he say, Peter,
Speaker 1: when you grow up, you should go in the insurance business.
Speaker 1: Is that what happened?
Speaker 2: No, you didn't. I mean the myth of him, you
Speaker 2: know reading the insurance and reinsurance books at night is
Speaker 2: not true. He always encouraged me to do and pursue
Speaker 2: what I wanted. And quite frankly, I went to you know,
Speaker 2: Boston College, graduated, and the reason why I want to
Speaker 2: enter the insurance industry was I wanted to stay in
Speaker 2: Boston and a company called the Hartford that was owned
Speaker 2: by it T at the time, did offer me a
Speaker 2: job if I would do training elsewhere to come back
Speaker 2: to Boston, And so that was the reason I took
Speaker 2: the job.
Speaker 1: Now, some people might say that insurance is a boring business.
Speaker 1: It doesn't attract people the way private equity does. But
Speaker 1: is that not the case or you found that to
Speaker 1: be interesting even right out of college.
Speaker 2: Now I find it very interesting. I mean you're not
Speaker 2: doing the same thing all the time when you start
Speaker 2: in the industry. I mean you're learning to build relationships,
Speaker 2: You're understand the quantitative nature of how to underwrite and
Speaker 2: also the qualitative nature. So I liked it because I
Speaker 2: had a balance of doing different things at once.
Speaker 1: So what did you do after your first job in Boston?
Speaker 2: Well, that's ironically I never made it back to Boston,
Speaker 2: and so that's I stayed in New York. And early
Speaker 2: on in my career I didn't think I could really
Speaker 2: work in New York City, which has been, you know,
Speaker 2: the predominant portion of my career. So I've always been
Speaker 2: in big companies. Worked at ITT and then I worked
Speaker 2: at General Electric and Marsh mcclennan after that.
Speaker 1: All right, So you were working at Marsh mcclennan on
Speaker 1: September eleventh of two thousand and one, and where were
Speaker 1: you on that morning?
Speaker 2: That morning? So was my sixth day of work at
Speaker 2: Marsh McLennan, and I was on the fifty third floor
Speaker 2: of Tower two that day to work and so what happened.
Speaker 2: The first plane went into Tower one. I had seen it,
Speaker 2: and so colleagues and I started to evacuate, nothing urgent,
Speaker 2: but into the stairwell to make our way down and
Speaker 2: made it to about the fortieth floor when the second
Speaker 2: plane went into the building, which I didn't know what
Speaker 2: it was at the time. I'd figured either Tower one
Speaker 2: had tipped over or something else had come into the building.
Speaker 2: And you know, we had a sense of urgency.
Speaker 1: Of getting was there a mass rushed down the stairways.
Speaker 2: There was, I mean it was orderly, but it was
Speaker 2: started to get panicky of trying to get out of
Speaker 2: the building and rush our way down the stairwell.
Speaker 1: So you got out of the building how much before
Speaker 1: the building collapsed.
Speaker 2: I was probably twenty minutes, you know, north of the
Speaker 2: building when it collapsed. I was never in danger of
Speaker 2: you know, having soot or or other things on me
Speaker 2: once the building collapsed.
Speaker 1: But as soon as you got out of the building,
Speaker 1: you didn't look up there and say, oh, I see
Speaker 1: what it's going to survive you You ran somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I'm actually met a friend and we happened
Speaker 2: to you know, we walked north to one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty fifth Street over the course of the day to
Speaker 2: get out of the city.
Speaker 1: And how many of your colleagues died Almost three hundred
Speaker 1: that day, three hundred colleagues died from Marsh mcclennanth. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So you didn't get out of that and say I've
Speaker 1: had enough of Wall Street, I've had enough of insurance.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go into something else. Now.
Speaker 2: It's a unique part about our business is that, you know,
Speaker 2: in you know, major disasters or you know, things that
Speaker 2: happened like that, you know, our clients need us, and
Speaker 2: you know, so it was immediately you know, calibrating, focusing
Speaker 2: on helping you know, I was in the reinsurance business
Speaker 2: at that time, so helping insurance companies, you know, get
Speaker 2: back into business and helping raise capital and you know,
Speaker 2: helping them assess what they needed to do going forward.
Speaker 1: So today, AIG over the years has been a gigantic company,
Speaker 1: one of the largest, maybe the larger at one time
Speaker 1: market cap insurance in the world. But then during the
Speaker 1: Great Recession it had some problems and ultimately the government
Speaker 1: had to come in with a bailout. You could call it.
Speaker 1: One hundred and eighty billion dollar guaranteed loan or bailout.
Speaker 1: Have you paid that back yet?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's been paid back. You know, well before I
Speaker 2: arrived at the company.
Speaker 1: And did the government make a profit on that?
Speaker 2: They did, Yes, they made a profit. There was interest
Speaker 2: and a profit.
Speaker 1: So what caused that was basically too much insurance on
Speaker 1: I guess it was high risk mortgages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a financial products product that had you know,
Speaker 2: credit related and so that you know, created a you know,
Speaker 2: impact on liquidity.
Speaker 1: So, Peter, when you took over as the CEO of
Speaker 1: this company, it wasn't as as good as shape as
Speaker 1: it appears to be now. So what did you do
Speaker 1: to turn it around? And what are you most proud
Speaker 1: of having achieved in your time as CEO so far?
Speaker 2: Well, the the thing I'm proud of the most is
Speaker 2: just the number of people that you know, came to
Speaker 2: AIG and actually people that stayed to come together as
Speaker 2: a organization to actually try and improve our underwriting, our
Speaker 2: operational capabilities and there in our financial performance. I mean,
Speaker 2: we had to shed relative to our balance sheet, one
Speaker 2: point four trillion dollars of exposure since we started, and
Speaker 2: so that was a dramatic change we had to do
Speaker 2: ten operational programs at once to get the foundation stability
Speaker 2: for the company for the future. And I actually think
Speaker 2: that part of the pandemic benefited us because we compressed
Speaker 2: that transformation and did it very fast and made dramatic
Speaker 2: improvements for the company. And then the financial performance started
Speaker 2: to really manifest itself from the efforts that we made
Speaker 2: on the underwriting side and the operation side. So it's
Speaker 2: just been a tremendous effort.
Speaker 1: As we've talked about this here now and pretty much
Speaker 1: in the P and C business, property and casualty, you're
Speaker 1: getting out of the life insurance business over time. But
Speaker 1: explain to me why the life insurance business wouldn't be
Speaker 1: a better business because you know, people are going to die,
Speaker 1: very predictable actual aries continue when they're going to die.
Speaker 1: Is why is that business not as good as the
Speaker 1: property and casualty business.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a very good business. The property and casualty
Speaker 2: businesses is totally different. I think the complexity in life
Speaker 2: insurance business is just you know, they have so much
Speaker 2: investment assets. It's a spread business and one that has
Speaker 2: really different, you know, dynamics that drive its outcomes.
Speaker 1: Now I see lots of ads on television for insurance,
Speaker 1: sometime home insurance, so forth. But I don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of AIG ads here you appealing to people like
Speaker 1: me who are watching television or you're going to institutional market.
Speaker 2: We have, you know, a distribution of agents and brokers
Speaker 2: that we're really a business to business and so we
Speaker 2: source our business through that distribution channel. So us advertising
Speaker 2: to you know, the end consumer has limited value in
Speaker 2: the products that we actually underwrite.
Speaker 1: So today, the insurance business, generally in the United States,
Speaker 1: would you say it's a reasonably healthy business today?
Speaker 2: I would. I think balance sheets are strong, I think
Speaker 2: the returns are are very good, and I think there's
Speaker 2: positive momentum.
Speaker 1: So you see a lot about what's going on the
Speaker 1: economy because you underwrite a lot of active is what
Speaker 1: is your biggest worry about the economy today or you
Speaker 1: think we're going to go into recession? Are you worried
Speaker 1: about inflation? High interest rates?
Speaker 2: I worry about it all. I mean, but you know,
Speaker 2: for insurance, I mean certainly inflation is one because of
Speaker 2: you know, we carry reserves for many years on our
Speaker 2: balance sheet, and you know what the effect is of
Speaker 2: inflation as we pay claims over the long term. You know,
Speaker 2: the investment rates, as I said, with fixed income, that's
Speaker 2: really strong for us in terms of reinvestment rates and
Speaker 2: so allows us to do very well on the investment side.
Speaker 2: And I do worry about the you know, global economy.
Speaker 2: You know, GDP has been holding up, but certainly like
Speaker 2: in the United States, I mean a big part of
Speaker 2: the GDP is healthcare and tech, and so seeing consumer
Speaker 2: spending and driving sales through retail is something that we watch,
Speaker 2: you know frequently.
Speaker 1: What percentage of your businesses or insurance overseas and what
Speaker 1: percentages in the United States.
Speaker 2: It's about fifty to fifty overseas and the United States.
Speaker 1: What are the number of employees you have now we.
Speaker 2: Have a little over thirty thousand employees at AIG and
Speaker 2: probably twenty thousand of you know, employee equivalents in terms
Speaker 2: of what we outsource through you know, a back office
Speaker 2: or through technology.
Speaker 1: And today your market capitalization is roughly forty five billion
Speaker 1: something like that. And today do you spend any time
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. Saying to regulators you're not doing
Speaker 1: a good job regulating us, or you members of Congress
Speaker 1: do a better job and taking care of the debt repayment.
Speaker 1: Do you do you spend any time in Washington?
Speaker 2: I do spend time in Washington and spend time with lawmakers.
Speaker 2: I mean the complexity of insurance is that we're state
Speaker 2: regulated and so you know, spending time with various state
Speaker 2: regulators and you know FCA and FSA in the UK
Speaker 2: and Japan respectively, is where I spend more of my time.
Speaker 1: And do you find when you meet with members of
Speaker 1: Congress it's an uplifting experience.
Speaker 2: You know, getting compromise and talking through specific issues is
Speaker 2: more challenging than it's been in the past, but you know,
Speaker 2: we're trying to make progress now.
Speaker 1: You go to a lot of CEO gatherings, I assume
Speaker 1: your members of business, things like the business round Table,
Speaker 1: business counsel and things like that. When you talk to
Speaker 1: other CEOs, not just in your industry, what are they
Speaker 1: most worried about today? They political divisiveness in Washington, inflation,
Speaker 1: high interest rates. What do you think people are most
Speaker 1: worried about?
Speaker 2: I think those three always come up. And the geopolitical environment.
Speaker 2: I also think state sponsored you know, cyber attacks and
Speaker 2: what does that do to you know, a company all
Speaker 2: of that is getting a lot of attention, and I
Speaker 2: think it's doesn't matter what industry you're in, it has
Speaker 2: its impact. I think also global expansion, the resistance for
Speaker 2: you know, acquisitions and support you know for companies to
Speaker 2: be able to acquire you know, big businesses outside of
Speaker 2: the United States gets challenging as well.
Speaker 1: So as the CEO of this company, your biggest concern
Speaker 1: is always increasing the share price or providing good service
Speaker 1: to your customers. What do you worry about the most
Speaker 1: in terms of the job of being CEO.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a great privilege to be a CEO of
Speaker 2: a company like this, and we've been in a massive
Speaker 2: turnaround and so fortunate to have so many good people
Speaker 2: with me at at AIG. I think with I have
Speaker 2: the longest tenure of six years of all of my executives,
Speaker 2: and I think over sixty percent of our top one
Speaker 2: hundred are new to the company, and so like bringing
Speaker 2: that together to actually drive the outcomes that we have
Speaker 2: has been incredibly rewarding and taking as you said, there's
Speaker 2: short term you know demands on CEOs, but taking a
Speaker 2: long term view of a business and building foundational you
Speaker 2: know capabilities that are enable us to do much more
Speaker 2: for our clients over the long term. Adapting to AI
Speaker 2: and adapting to you know, a rapidly changing world is
Speaker 2: a high priority for me.
Speaker 1: So if the President of the United States called you
Speaker 1: and said, you know, you really know a lot about insurance,
Speaker 1: you know a lot about risk, why don't you come
Speaker 1: into the US government and help assess risk we have?
Speaker 2: You would say, what I'm better suited for a public
Speaker 2: company is what?
Speaker 1: Ever? So you're not probably going to go into the
Speaker 1: public sector anytimes.
Speaker 2: That probably is not in the cards for me.
Speaker 1: Well, as we talked today, there are lots of problems
Speaker 1: around the world. One of them is what's going on
Speaker 1: in Israel. Another one is what's going on in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: How do you assess those risks? For example, did you
Speaker 1: ever provide insurance to people in Ukraine?
Speaker 2: We did provide. We had a business in Russia, you know,
Speaker 2: prior to the Russia Ukraine conflict, we did not have
Speaker 2: a big business in Ukraine. But through you know, Lloyd's
Speaker 2: we did have exposure to some classes of business, you know,
Speaker 2: through the war. And so you know, assessing that is
Speaker 2: very complicated and one that you need to manage. You know,
Speaker 2: how much you're going to underwrite a specific class that
Speaker 2: could have, you know, political violence or a war or terrorism.
Speaker 1: So let's suppose I own a big factory, a semiconductor
Speaker 1: chip factory in Taiwan, and I come to you and say,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to get some insurance against
Speaker 1: it possibility that China might invade and destroy or take
Speaker 1: over my plant. Is that the kind of thing you
Speaker 1: would do or that's too risky?
Speaker 2: That would be too risky. Yeah, I think that there's
Speaker 2: there's some portions of what we call violence you know coverage.
Speaker 2: But you know, in areas where we know that there's
Speaker 2: an exposure, it gets very hard to underwrite that, and
Speaker 2: so we would have very limited capacity to be able
Speaker 2: to do something like that.
Speaker 1: But you don't provide war insurance, then pretty much do
Speaker 1: you provide flood insurance. I have a home in Nantucket
Speaker 1: that's right on the water there, and I'm always worried
Speaker 1: when the flood's going to come. So can I get
Speaker 1: flood insurance or is that hard to get these days?
Speaker 2: It's hard to get. But we do provide flood insurance,
Speaker 2: as does the government.
Speaker 1: And what's the fastest growing area of insurance that people
Speaker 1: are for property and casual what are people most interested in?
Speaker 1: Just home insurance?
Speaker 2: Home insurance has been one of the more complicated ones,
Speaker 2: you know, across the United States. But I think, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the biggest growing areas is what we call
Speaker 2: access and surplus lines. It's a market that sits alongside
Speaker 2: the regulated market and that has been growing significantly across
Speaker 2: the industry as well as fraig.
Speaker 1: And what's been the biggest challenge for the insurance industry
Speaker 1: over the last five or ten.
Speaker 2: Years, I think it's understanding you know, these unpredictable risks
Speaker 2: of whether it was the pandemic, understanding what could happen,
Speaker 2: you know, with potential war breakout, but also you know,
Speaker 2: the climate change. As I said before, having that type
Speaker 2: of hurricane activity. We've had a hundred natural disasters reported
Speaker 2: through nine months of this year that that just hasn't
Speaker 2: happened in the past.
Speaker 1: So, if I am trying to learn the insurance business,
Speaker 1: what's the most important thing as an outsider wants to
Speaker 1: assess whether the industry is a good industry to invest in.
Speaker 1: What are the inndition that people like me should look at.
Speaker 2: I always think depending on how sophisticated the individuals looking
Speaker 2: at at companies, always the strength of the balance sheet,
Speaker 2: the consistency of performance is really important because if you
Speaker 2: end up getting a lot of surprises from catastrophes or
Speaker 2: you know, other variables, it's very hard to predict what's
Speaker 2: going to happen with that insurance company in the future.
Speaker 2: And then i'd look at the leadership in terms of,
Speaker 2: you know, their track record in you know, developing business
Speaker 2: that have sustainable, long term profitability.
Speaker 1: Now, the insurance business has been historically a very strong
Speaker 1: one of the United States. Are we still the leader
Speaker 1: in global insurance? Are there companies outside the United States
Speaker 1: that are even more significant now?
Speaker 2: Very big companies in China, very big companies in Japan market.
Speaker 2: And there's very big companies market cap wise in Europe.
Speaker 2: And so I think that those are the four areas
Speaker 2: including the United States, that have very large market cap
Speaker 2: multinational insurance companies.
Speaker 1: And today and AIG, what is the biggest challenge you
Speaker 1: face as the CEO of AIG. What are you most
Speaker 1: worried about? Well, all of.
Speaker 2: The you know what's happening, you know, geopolitically, we've just
Speaker 2: come out of a pandemic. I mean, the complexities across
Speaker 2: the world and the fragility of you know, what might
Speaker 2: happen in the future is is what I worry about,
Speaker 2: you know the most, because there's things, you know, if
Speaker 2: you told me five years ago you're going to come
Speaker 2: in be the CEO, You're going to deal with the
Speaker 2: global pandemic, two wars, you know, potential, you know, political
Speaker 2: you know, tension across the world, and also dealing with
Speaker 2: financial you know, challenges that that that's a lot. And
Speaker 2: so making sure that we you know, focus and deliver
Speaker 2: on what we you know, can do as an insurance
Speaker 2: company and adapt all the changes that are going on
Speaker 2: around us.
Speaker 1: So for young professionals who might be watching, who say,
Speaker 1: while I'm looking for a job, maybe I should get
Speaker 1: in the insurance business. Why should want somebody want to
Speaker 1: come in the insurance business? What makes it so exciting?
Speaker 2: I think our purpose and what we do for a
Speaker 2: living is is very you know, meaningful, Like we keep businesses, societies,
Speaker 2: uh you know, cities moving after you know, natural disasters
Speaker 2: or you know, moving claims and allowing companies to build.
Speaker 2: And you know, a lot of times in order to lend,
Speaker 2: you need to have insurance. And so I think it's
Speaker 2: a uh, you know, industry that really doesn't get its
Speaker 2: full credit for you know, all that it does. And
Speaker 2: I think our purpose is incredibly meaningful and we show
Speaker 2: up in moments that are really critical for you know,
Speaker 2: our customers and clients.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, you've done a very good job of dealing
Speaker 1: with a complicated situation because AIG has been in a
Speaker 1: turnaround ever since the government bailout. I guess I would
Speaker 1: call it bailout and today you would say it's financial
Speaker 1: shape is pretty good.
Speaker 2: I think it's very good. The progress that we've made,
Speaker 2: again with having so many tremendous people here that had
Speaker 2: a single purpose of putting AIG back to being an
Speaker 2: industry leader, that we've strengthened sort of every component of
Speaker 2: the company. The balance sheet, underwriting capabilities, our investment portfolio
Speaker 2: is much simpler, the company simpler, operations are streamlined. So
Speaker 2: I think we've really made enormous progress and feel like
Speaker 2: we have a lot to do still.
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