ABOUT THIS COMPANY

ABOUT THIS COMPANY

Made in China

New York-based American International Group operates in 130 countries around the world. AIG also provides financial services and asset management, as well as auto insurance, mortgage guaranty, annuities and aircraft leasing.

AIG was founded in 1919 in Shanghai, China, by Cornelius Vander Starr, a former U.S. Army veteran. At first, the company offered only fire and marine insurance. In 1936, it opened a New York office specializing in insuring risks incurred outside the country by U.S. companies. World War II forced the company to move its headquarters to the U.S. and focus on the life insurance markets in North and South America. In 1967, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg replaced Starr as the head of AIG (Greenberg was forced out of the firm in 2005). Two years later, the insurer went public. Greenberg's policy on underwriting profits has been credited for much of the company's success, preventing AIG from suffering during the insurance industry price wars in the early 1980s. During the 1990s, the company became the first established insurance agency to enter the Vietnamese market, the first foreign company in Pakistan in two decades and the first major foreign investor in the Russian insurance industry.