AIG - Systemic Risk
- (p17) - One of the fears was that if things had gone in another direction and AIG had to be wound up, each one of the state commissioners would have had its own proceedings.
- That was part of what created systemic risk for AIG, where there would be a fragmented series of resolutions and every insolvency official appointed by a commissioner would try and seize AIG assets.
2018 1120 - Lessons Learned Oral History Project Interview: Thomas Baxter - 19p
- (p19) - The reason the Federal Government decided to rescue AIG was because of the systemic risk created by Financial Products.
- (p19) - To make matters worse, the counterparties to those swaps included many of the world’s leading financial institutions.
- It was to protect those institutions that the Federal Government acted.
-- Testimony of the Honorable Joel Ario, Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Insurance Department, On Behalf of the National Association of Insurance Commissioner
2009 0318 - GOV (House) - American International Group’s Impact On The Global Economy: Before, During, And After Federal Intervention, Federal Aid to AIG Insurance, Regulators Panel (CSPAN), Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) --- [BonkNote]
- (p84) - Mr. CAMPBELL (R-CA). Talk about the life insurance subsidiary for a second.
- I know that in your—I believe it was the company’s evaluation of systemic risk, that is where you believe there is a great deal of systemic risk, but there is a lot of counterparty liabilities to other life insurance companies. Is that true?
- Mr. LIDDY. It is in both.
- You know, we insure, on the property casualty side, we insure 94 percent of the Fortune 500 companies.
- So the systemic risk idea is very real in both the property casualty and the life side.
Systemic risk afflicts all life insurance and investment firms around the world.
Thus, what happens to AIG has the potential to trigger a cascading set of further failures which cannot be stopped except by extraordinary means. (p2)
- The failure of AIG would cause turmoil in the U.S. economy and global markets, and have multiple and potentially catastrophic unforeseen consequences. (p3)
- The systemic risk is principally centered in the “life insurance” business because it is this subsector that has the greatest variety of investments and obligations that are subject to loss of value of the underlying investments. (p4)
- A significant rise in surrender rates – inspired by consumers’ needs for cash or because of rumored or real failure of insurance companies – could be disastrous.
- Because of widespread loss of liquidity, the industry would struggle to raise adequate cash to meet surrender requests.
- A “run on the bank” in the life and retirement business would have sweeping impacts across the economy in the U.S. In countries around the world with higher savings rates than the U.S., the failure of insurance companies like AIG would be a catastrophe. (p4)
- AIG has written more than 81 million life insurance policies to individuals worldwide – Face value: $1.9 trillion (p9)
- Surrender of insurance policies at above-normal actuarial rates could impair current policyholders as capital, along with state guarantee funds, might be insufficient to pay all policyholder claims. (p9)
- Since life insurance has changed greatly in character over the last two decades – from just a basic provision of death and disability benefits to a vehicle for retirement savings and wealth accumulation – the effects of disrupting the industry are wide ranging and significant. (p21)
2009 0226 - AIG - AIG: Is the Risk Systemic? - 21p