AIG Brand Returns to American International Group's Property/Casualty, Life/Retirement Businesses
November 13, 2012 by Jeff Jeffrey
Best’s News Service – November 12, 2012 03:29 PM
AIG Brand Returns to American International Group’s Property/Casualty, Life/Retirement Businesses
NEW YORK – American International Group Inc. has renamed several of its businesses, returning to the AIG brand it had attempted to distance itself from after its rescue package during the financial crisis of 2008.
The insurer has renamed several segments, using the AIG moniker and introduced a new logo and slogan — “Bring on Tomorrow” — for marketing purposes.
The company renamed its life and retirement segment AIG Life and Retirement and its global property/casualty franchise will also use the AIG name. Other brands in the AIG family, including VALIC, Lexington Insurance, American General, SunAmerica and Western National, will continue unchanged.
“AIG as a global insurance brand is back,” AIG president and chief executive officer Robert H. Benmosche said in a statement.
Benmosche said the new slogan “underscores AIG’s tremendous tenacity and ambition — to solve problems, to innovate for the benefit of our clients, and to act as a powerful, global team.”
AIG announced the rebranding earlier this year and even launched a YouTube channel as part of the its effort to tell its turnaround story since its multibillion-dollar bailout from the federal government in 2008 (Best’s News Service, July 30, 2012). The campaign to return to the AIG name and to harness the power of YouTube is “the right move at the right time,” Dan Weedin, a Seattle insurance consultant, told Best’s News Service at the time. “The old experiment failed, they are going back to what worked, they are promoting what they have done in paying back, and they said thank you to the American public,” said Weedin, president of Toro Consulting Inc., in an email.
For the past several years, AIG has worked with U.S. Treasury Department officials to repay the $182 billion in government assistance it received during the financial crisis to avert the company’s collapse. The company’s statement said it has fully repaid the federal government and the Federal Reserve and Treasury have received a combined positive return of approximately $15.9 billion on their investments in the company.
Earlier this month, AIG reported that improved pricing in its property/casualty segment and higher investment yields on the life insurance side of the group helped the company bring in a net profit for the third quarter. AIG (NYSE: AIG) reported third-quarter net income of $1.6 billion, compared with a net loss of $4 billion in the same period a year earlier. Insurance operating income rose 87% to $1.6 billion (Best’s News Service, Nov. 2, 2012).
On the afternoon of Nov. 12, shares of AIG were trading at $31.95, down 0.68% from the previous day’s close.
Like many companies based in downtown Manhattan, AIG was forced to shutter its Water Street headquarters when Hurricane Sandy barrelled through the Northeast in late October (Best’s News Service, Nov. 2, 2012). At the time, Benmosche said the AIG’s business continuity plans enabled the company to continue to serving customers and “operate nearly without interruption.”
Certain underwriting entities of American International Group Inc. currently have a Best’s Financial Strength Rating of A (Excellent).
(By Jeff Jeffrey, Washington Bureau Manager: jeff.jeffrey@ambest.com) BN-NJ-11-12-2012 1529 ET #