Peter Zaffino

Peter Zaffino has served as Chairman and CEO of AIG since 2021, executing one of the most consequential turnarounds in insurance industry history. AIG, once the world's largest insurer, became a symbol of the 2008 financial crisis when it required a $182 billion government bailout due to massive losses on credit default swaps. For over a decade afterward, AIG struggled with underperformance, bloated operations, and investor skepticism. Zaffino's turnaround strategy was surgical. He separated AIG's life and retirement business through the IPO of Corebridge Financial, reduced AIG to a focused commercial property-casualty insurer, dramatically improved underwriting discipline (bringing the combined ratio from well above 100% to competitive levels), and simplified the organizational structure. These actions transformed AIG from a conglomerate discount story into a streamlined commercial insurance company. His key decisions involve the timeline for fully divesting the remaining Corebridge stake, commercial insurance rate adequacy in a softening market, expense ratio improvement, capital return through share buybacks, and positioning AIG's commercial specialty lines for growth. The stock reflects the market's assessment of whether the turnaround is sustainable and how effectively AIG can deploy capital post-Corebridge separation.