Newspaper reports recently confuse all Insurance Companies with Life Insurance Companies. Only Life Insurance Companies, however, are asking for Federal Taxpayer Money at this time. See Mary Williams Walsh, "Months In, Insurers Ask Whether Aid Is On Its Way" p. B1, col. 6 (New York Times Nat'l Ed., Business Day Section, Friday, February 27, 2009)(every Insurance Company mentioned in the linked report is a Life Insurance Company).
As was posted here previously, no Property and Casualty Insurance Companies, for example, have yet requested Federal Taxpayer Funds.
The major differences between Life and P&C Insurance Companies in this regard, which made Life Insurance Companies -- including AIG -- the only Insurance Companies to seek a Federal bailout? Life Insurance Companies marketed their Policies as "products" and accepted large amounts of Premiums for guaranteeing still other Securitized Financial products including Credit Default Swaps. The Life Insurance Companies that guaranteed many CDS's now find themselves much in debt for them.
(Of course, Credit Default Swaps were not regulated at the Federal level, and they were not regulated at the State level even when they functioned as Insurance without capital reserves to back them.)
By and large, Property and Casualty Insurance Companies did not and do not market their Policies as "products" and they did not invest nearly as heavily in instruments like CDS's.
Those are some big differences.
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