The story about US Life Insurance giant AIG that we blogged a few days ago has taken a couple of twists this weekend.
We blogged that story here on 16 March.
Here’s what happened next…
20 March
Just as everyone thought those AIG executives were going to cut and run with their ill-gotten bonuses, the US Government raced through a bill (reported in the Herald on 20 March) that enabled them to slap a 100% tax on the proceeds, thus entitling the US government to grab the money back for the US tax-payer. Now that’s fast work!Hat tip to the US government for that one.
22 March
Seems those sharp AIG life insurance executives were a step ahead of everyone... they weren't paid out US$165 million in bonuses as previously reported, they were in fact paid out US$218 million!! That’s US$53 million above what was earlier disclosed. (See Herald article 22 March.) One wonders what level of bonus they would’ve received had they just broken even instead of making an US$85 billion loss!
Whilst this AIG corporate behaviour is the sort of thing that gives us Life Insurance guys and indeed our industry a bad name, just remember, not all life insurance companies behave this way...
