AIG Looks To Establish Beachhead In Iraq

American International Group plans to be front and center when Iraq becomes peaceful enough to resume domestic insurance operations, a top executive with the New York-based carrier says.

"We want to be the first foreign insurance company over there," said Gordon Knight, president of AIG WorldSource. The company which presently insures 4,000 employees working for several hundred civilian contractors on the $18 billion Iraq reconstruction program believes that, over time, "there will be a stable insurance marketplace; people buying home, life insurance, insurance for their assets," Mr. Knight explained.

AIG, he said, is "excited" by the fact that a member of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners is headed for Baghdad to work on establishing an insurance regulatory framework for the country. Mr. Knight said the NAIC representative Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Mike Pickens, who has worked on arrangements to provide insurance expertise for China and Vietnamsent AIG a note saying he was going to Baghdad to draft insurance regulations for Iraq.