Dinallo Reports Heavy AIG Call Volume

September 24, 2008 at 11:54 AM
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The New York State Insurance Department received about 1,000 calls about American International Group Inc. insurance contracts in the first 2 days after news of the company's liquidity problems surfaced.

New York State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo talked about the calls here at the fall meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo.

Dinallo emphasized that the insurance units of AIG, New York, are solvent.

At this point, state insurance regulators do not have data on any AIG insurance product cancellations or surrenders that may have taken place following the announcement that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York would be intervening to provide a credit line for AIG, Dinallo said.

To make sure that other financial services companies do not have the same kinds of problems that AIG has had, the New York department has sent 308 forms asking for information about insurers' securities lending programs, Dinallo said.

Although as many as 90% of the credit default swaps at AIG may have involved transactions that were not insurance, some of the arrangements may have been arrangements that could be treated as insurance products, and New York is looking into how the arrangements could be regulated as insurance products, Dinallo said.

Also at the NAIC's fall meeting, the NAICs Life Insurance and Annuities Committee adopted a template bulletin warning consumers against surrendering AIG contracts without considering factors such as surrender charges, and a template warning informing producers that use of disparaging information without a factual basis is a crime that will be pursued by state insurance departments.

Some state insurance departments already have posted the consumer and producer notices on their Web sites.

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