Cooking the Insurance Books

[unapatriciated]

This article is from 2004, but is an interesting read on AIG.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11657

A Decade of Lax Regulation Lays Groundwork for Scandal
by Lucy Komisar, Special to CorpWatch
November 17th, 2004

"In October, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against the world’s largest insurance broker, Marsh, accusing it of rigging bids and receiving kickbacks in order to defraud clients such as other corporations, city governments, school districts and individuals of billions of dollars through inflated premiums.
“Greedy trial lawyers were the usual excuse for premium increases. Now we know that greedy corporations also have a starring role," Spitzer said, accusing several insurance companies as co-conspirators in making phony or inflated bids and paying kickbacks to the brokerage to get business.
Spitzer also announced that two executives from the insurance conglomerate American International Group (AIG) had already confessed to related criminal charges. But his investigations into AIG may have only scratched the surface. A paper trail stretching back a decade reveals that AIG used offshore shell companies to skirt the law........


In the late 90s, four state insurance departments New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania and California were aware that AIG was moving debt off its books via the use of an offshore shell company it secretly set up and controlled. But despite clear evidence of
wrongdoing, no sanctions were ordered."




I worked for a medium size brokerage house in Californian during the early to middle 90's.
We placed most if not all policies with AIG (little time spent on competitive bids because we had exclusives with AIG).
I remember how worried my bosses were, when state investigators came in asking questions and looking at files.
But it went no further than that.. The five years I worked for this brokerage house opened my eyes to how crooked the Insurance Industry was.

[chimpymustgo]

1. Jeebus!! Is it ALL just a big scam??

[unapatriciated]

2. pretty much...

I remember my bosses being afraid of criminal prosecution and we were told to avoid answering questions, during the investigation.

[chimpymustgo]

4. Boy, if someone would pull all these threads together and weave a tapestry...

[unapatriciated]

3. .