AIG South Africa Shows Good Profits

AIG SA's profit over $63 million in Q3 AIG SA says its business as usual in SA, despite the knock taken by its US parent company.

AIG South Africa issued a strong message of "business as usual" to its policyholders, backed by a strong Q3 financial report.

American International Underwriters (AIU), a separately capitalized group of companies linked to AIG, and which includes the South African branch, showed that its operations were highly profitable and remained totally unaffected by the problems faced by the parent company, AIG in the United States.

While AIG issued a statement in New York showing that its third quarter losses stood at nearly $25 billion, AIU showed that its third quarter operations actually grew by an impressive 11.5%. The group also said that underwriting profits were $232 million, although this was offset by payouts resulting in natural catastrophes such as Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav in the United States.

The South African section of AIG performed equally well, with AIG South Africa and AIG Life South Africa posting a profit of $63.7 million for the third quarter of 2008. Compared to the previous year's statistics, profits were up a massive 63%.

The Chief Operations Officer for AIG South Africa, Wayne Abraham said of the third quarter results: "For AIG South Africa, it's business as usual. We are in a very strong financial position and continue to pay claims and underwrite new business. AIG Inc's challenges in the US are localized and are not impacting our operations here."

Abraham went on to reassure all policyholders by saying: "We remain tightly regulated and we are required by local law to maintain specific levels of solvency in order to maintain trading licenses."