AIG to acquire the majority of renewal rights to Everest Group’s global retail insurance portfolio in $2 billion deal

The agreement with Everest, one of the world’s largest reinsurance and insurance solutions companies, is part of AIG CEO Peter Zaffino’s turnaround efforts at the century-old insurance company. It will also ease Everest’s loss reserve management issues after it underestimated claims costs in its US casualty insurance business, leaving the company short of capital.

Insiders say AIG expects to start writing policies for existing Everest clients in North America by the beginning of 2026. As for clients in the European Union, AIG is positioned to begin work on that portfolio during the first quarter of 2026, depending on regulatory approvals.

AIG, a $44 billion insurance company, already serves more than 88 million business and personal customers worldwide, operating in more than 200 countries and jurisdictions. Everest also serves millions of policyholders, but is much smaller, at about $14.5 billion.

Meanwhile, Everest has hired several senior executives from AIG in recent years including the company’s former chief legal officer Anthony Vidovich, who was named executive vice president and general counsel of Everest on October 16.

The Everest deal did not require AIG to seek outside capital or take on debt, insiders say. While AIG will acquire the portfolio and client relationships as part of the deal, all existing liabilities and prior exposure will remain with Everest. These specifications will allow AIG to access future customers and business without inheriting liability for claims and liabilities from policies written before the deal closes.

The move will significantly boost AIG’s portfolio growth in general insurance, an aspect that has shown consistent growth under Zaffino’s leadership. In 2024, the company recorded $23.9 billion in premiums, up 6% year over year on a comparable basis. New business in 2024 reached $4.5 billion, an increase of 9%. The company’s first-quarter and second-quarter earnings show more potential promise. New premiums written in the first quarter rose 8% on a like-for-like basis, generating $4.5 billion, with second-quarter premiums generating $6.9 billion.

The potential for growth and avoiding additional financial risks are particularly important to Zaffino’s vision and AIG’s turnaround. The company faced an uphill battle after its involvement in the global financial crisis of 2008. In the run-up to 2008, AIG entered into massive amounts of largely unhedged credit default swaps, insuring more than $440 billion in assets, including $57.8 billion backed by subprime mortgages.

When the subprime mortgage market collapsed, AIG faced huge losses and had to pay off credit default contracts. As investors and counterparties demanded collateral, the company’s liquidity evaporated, requiring a $182 billion government bailout in exchange for an equity stake.

In the decade that followed, the insurer lost more than $30 billion in underwriting—an indicator of excess capital, weak risk controls, and a lack of accountability for underwriting results—and endured numerous CEO changes.

When Zaffino became CEO in 2021, AIG had undergone significant downsizing, asset sales, and management turnover, but persistent operational inefficiencies and poor profitability, especially in underwriting, remained.

Since assuming his position, Zaffino has led an aggressive transformation strategy focused on disciplined underwriting, process streamlining, and technology modernization. AIG divested non-core units, reduced its risk exposure by more than $1 trillion, and invested in artificial intelligence capabilities. These include partnerships with Anthropic and Palantir to build AI-based risk assessment and operational tools aimed at improving underwriting accuracy and claims efficiency.

AIG’s financial performance has improved significantly, with analysts describing it as a “different company” compared to previous years. In the second quarter of 2025, the company reported a profit of $1.1 billion, reversing a loss of $4 billion a year earlier that primarily reflected the spin-off of Corebridge Financial, a life insurance and retirement solutions provider, and other portfolio changes. Adjusted after-tax income rose 56% year-over-year, and AIG’s earnings per share of $1.81 beat expectations of $1.60, while revenue of $6.88 billion topped expectations of $6.78 billion.