The International Insurance Society (IIS) has announced Robert H. Benmosche, President & CEO, AIG, as the 2013 Insurance Hall of Fame winner. Mr. Benmosche will be inducted at the June 17 gala dinner in conjunction with the IIS 49th Annual Seminar at the Grand Hyatt in Seoul, Korea, June 16 – 20, 2013.
The Insurance Hall of Fame award honors insurance leaders who have made a broad, encompassing and lasting contribution to the insurance industry and who are recognized by their peers as successful leaders, innovators and visionaries. A slate of five nominees for the Insurance Hall of Fame was selected by the IIS Honors Committee, a body of senior insurance executives and academics, and voted on by the IIS membership by secret ballot tabulated and conducted by Deloitte & Touche.
“We cannot think of anyone who more fully embodies the criteria for the Insurance Hall of Fame Award than Mr. Benmosche”, says Bernhard Fink, IIS Honors Committee Chairman. “During his long and successful career in our industry he has demonstrated extraordinary leadership skills and business acuity”. “AIG’s astonishing turnaround during Mr. Benmosche’s three year reign is nothing short of remarkable and further speaks to his outstanding management abilities evident throughout his extensive career in the industry”, adds Michael J. Morrissey, IIS President and CEO.
IIS Chairman Norman Sorensen states, “the entire insurance industry, and society as a whole, owes Mr. Benmosche their immense gratitude for coming out of retirement to return AIG to profitability and into a fully privately owned enterprise once again”.
Robert H. Benmosche joined AIG as President and Chief Executive Officer in August 2009, coming out of retirement to lead AIG out of a deeply complex crisis that involved unprecedented involvement by the U.S. government in a publicly traded company and widespread public anger over that support. He is credited as “the man who saved AIG” from financial collapse during the worldwide financial crisis that started in 2008, and returning AIG to financial stability and profitability. Importantly, AIG’s turnaround mitigated a global wave of repercussions that the failure of a company that size could have caused. AIG’s potential demise threatened millions of businesses, families, and individuals around the world including the more than 85 million customers and 57,000 global employees whose financial security would have been jeopardized had the company collapsed.
Mr. Benmosche’s appointment to AIG is recognized as one of the most important steps in the company’s turnaround. Since his arrival in 2009, he has articulated a clear strategy for AIG’s emergence as an independent company that preserves and creates shareholder value. He has inspired AIG’s employees to improve each day to build the world’s most valuable insurance company. Mr. Benmosche has shown the same extraordinary level of leadership, energy, and commitment to AIG since he joined the company.
Prior to joining AIG, Mr. Benmosche had an exemplary career as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MetLife, retiring in 2006 after eleven years during which he led the transition of MetLife from a mutual to a public company in April 2000. Since then, MetLife has risen to be the largest life insurer in North America. During Mr. Benmosche’s tenure, MetLife acquired General American and Traveler’s Life and Annuity. He joined MetLife as an Executive Vice President in 1995 to direct the merger of New England Mutual with MetLife, and to head MetLife’s Individual Sales force and Retail Product Development. Mr. Benmosche was President and Chief Operating Officer from 1997 until he was named Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer in 1998.
Before joining MetLife, Mr. Benmosche spent more than 13 years at PaineWebber Group Incorporated, where he served in several capacities including: Senior Vice President of Marketing, CFO of the Retail Brokerage Division, and Executive Vice President from 1989-1995, serving as the head of Operations and Technology and Director and Sales Manager for over 1,500 retail investment advisors. He also directed the merger of Kidder Peabody into PaineWebber in 1994. Earlier in his career, Mr. Benmosche was a Chase Manhattan Bank Vice President and a staff consultant with Arthur D. Little. Mr. Benmosche received his bachelor’s degree from Alfred University and served in Korea as a Lieutenant in the United States Army Signal Corps. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse Group AG. He has also served on the Boards of Directors of the New York Philharmonic and Alfred University. He is a native of Brooklyn, New York.
