American International Group NYSE: AIG executives highlighted what Chairman and CEO Peter Zaffino described as an “exceptional” start to 2026, pointing to strong underwriting results, double-digit premium growth in General Insurance, improved expense performance, and continued capital returns as key themes on the company’s first-quarter earnings call.
First-quarter performance and underwriting results
Zaffino said the quarter was “the strongest first quarter that we’ve seen since I’ve been at AIG,” and management emphasized progress toward the company’s three-year Investor Day targets laid out in 2025.
In General Insurance, net premiums written increased 18% year-over-year on a constant dollar basis, with growth driven by Global Commercial Insurance (up 21%) and Global Personal Insurance (up 11%), according to Zaffino. Keith Walsh, AIG’s CFO, said General Insurance gross premiums written were $10 billion, up 7% year-over-year on a constant dollar basis, while net premiums written totaled $5.6 billion. Net premiums earned were $6.1 billion, up 5%.
Walsh said adjusted pretax income was $1.5 billion, up 65% from the prior-year quarter, while underwriting income “more than tripled” to $774 million. He attributed the improvement to lower catastrophe losses, better accident year underwriting results, higher favorable prior-year reserve development, and transaction and organic growth.
On underwriting metrics, Zaffino reported an accident year combined ratio as adjusted of 86.6% (an improvement of 120 basis points year-over-year) and an expense ratio of 29.3% (also improved by 120 basis points). The calendar year combined ratio was 87.3%, improving 850 basis points year-over-year. Walsh said the company’s catastrophe losses were approximately $180 million, with the largest losses tied to winter storms.
Walsh also cited $132 million of favorable prior-year development, including $127 million of favorable loss reserve development, driven “primarily by continued favorable loss experience, most notably in U.S. property and Financial Lines.”
Zaffino said adjusted after-tax income per diluted share was $2.11, up 80% year-over-year, and Core Operating ROE was 12.2%.
Segment and pricing commentary, including property market pressure
Management provided detailed commentary on market conditions, with particular focus on competitive pressure in U.S. large-account property.
Zaffino said AIG’s global property portfolio is approximately $6.5 billion in gross premiums written, with about 40% in international property. He said the international property portfolio’s calendar year combined ratio averaged in the low 70s across 2024 and 2025, while international pricing was down 4% in the quarter—only the second quarter of rate reductions in the last five years, he said.
In the U.S., Zaffino said AIG’s retail property portfolio—“majority shared and layered”—also produced calendar year combined ratios in the 70s in 2024 and 2025. He added that Lexington’s middle-market excess and surplus (E&S) property book has been “one of the fastest-growing segments in property” and among the best combined ratios in the company’s global property portfolio.
However, Zaffino said Lexington’s large-account shared and layered E&S property business (less than 10% of AIG’s global property portfolio) has faced “significant pricing pressure” over the last year. As a result, he said AIG has been contracting that portfolio and expects the contraction to continue if current conditions persist, citing a 19% year-over-year decline in new business within that portfolio.
On pricing, Walsh said North America Commercial renewal pricing excluding property increased 7%, “largely in line with loss cost trend,” while North America Property pricing decreased 11%. In International Commercial, overall pricing was down 1% and “slightly positive excluding financial lines,” he said. Walsh also noted property pricing down 4% internationally, with Japan delivering “both positive rate and pricing.”
In response to a question about Lexington and E&S markets, Zaffino reiterated the distinction between large-account shared and layered property—where the company expects continued shrinking—and middle-market business, where AIG continues to see strong submissions. He said casualty pricing has become “a little bit more under pressure from rates” but is “not in the same bucket as the way the property’s been performing.”
Reinsurance renewals and Everest portfolio conversion
AIG executives repeatedly pointed to reinsurance as a key tailwind in the quarter. Zaffino said AIG achieved enhanced terms and conditions and favorable pricing at the January 1 renewal cycle and negotiated “substantial year-over-year savings,” including on the Everest portfolio, which provided a “meaningful tailwind” to net premiums written in the first quarter.
Eric Andersen, who joined AIG in February and is set to become CEO on June 1, said North America Commercial net premiums written increased 36% year-over-year, with growth “largely driven by reinsurance changes and the Everest renewals in our retail business.” He also said Retail and Lexington Property benefited from the January 1 reinsurance renewals.
Andersen said International Commercial net premiums written rose 12% year-over-year, with most growth coming from the Convex whole account quota share, Everest renewals, and reinsurance changes. He also reported Global Commercial retention of 88%, with $1.6 billion of new business including Everest renewals, up 42% year-over-year.
During Q&A, Zaffino said the company has worked closely with Everest in the conversion, including bringing over employees, and that retention is performing within AIG’s expected range. Jon Hancock added that the “retention and the conversion is really strong,” and said ratios were “just as we expected,” noting AIG is repricing and restructuring parts of the book where appropriate and taking lead positions in some layers.
AI, digital strategy, and multi-agent underwriting tools
Zaffino devoted a significant portion of prepared remarks to AIG’s AI initiatives, emphasizing the company’s underwriting-focused deployment and a partnership with Palantir and Anthropic.
He said AIG launched “Underwriting by AIG Assist” in 2025 and expanded it across eight lines of business. In Lexington middle-market property, Zaffino said AIG Assist helped deliver a 30% improvement in quoting more submissions, reduced time to quote by 55%, and increased binding of submissions by approximately 40%.
This quarter, Zaffino said AIG began the “next phase of agentic AI” using Palantir’s Foundry platform, expanding the company’s “ontology” and adding orchestration capabilities designed to support multiple teams of AI agents integrated with core systems. He outlined a multi-agent approach, with agents dedicated to submission ingestion and data extraction, risk evaluation against underwriting guidelines, and pricing benchmarks, among other tasks, coordinated through an orchestration layer.
He also described a claims-related evaluation conducted by Anthropic in which Claude aligned with a professional claims adjuster 88% of the time on a 100-claim review, and he listed examples of signals large language models can flag, including timeline inconsistencies, geolocation mismatches, prior claim patterns, document tampering signals, and coverage gaps. Zaffino stressed that “human oversight is and will continue to be essential” in underwriting processes.
When asked about AI’s implications for broker compensation, Zaffino said he expects AI to improve efficiency in exchanging submission data and noted brokers provide significant advisory services. He said scale would matter over time and that collaboration could strengthen as AI becomes more embedded across enterprises.
Capital management, investment income, and leadership transition
AIG returned $760 million to shareholders in the quarter, including $519 million of share repurchases and $241 million in dividends, according to Zaffino. The company’s board also approved an 11% increase in the quarterly dividend to $0.50 per share beginning in the second quarter of 2026, which Zaffino said marked the fourth consecutive year of double-digit percentage increases.
Zaffino said AIG ended the quarter with a total debt to total adjusted capital ratio of 17.7%. He also reiterated AIG’s plan to fully exit its remaining stake in Corebridge Financial during 2026, subject to market conditions, noting that its equity interest was approximately 5.6% at quarter-end and that proceeds are expected to be used primarily for additional share repurchases.
On investments, Walsh said General Insurance net investment income rose 17% year-over-year to $864 million, driven by growth in the core fixed income portfolio and reinvestment at higher yields. He said alternative investment income was lower at $6 million versus $43 million a year earlier, with private equity returns of 1.6% in the quarter and expected to remain below expectations in the second quarter due to market volatility. Walsh also discussed AIG’s private credit exposure, including direct lending exposure of about $1.2 billion, less than 1.5% of the General Insurance investment portfolio.
Book value per share was $75.82 at March 31, 2026, up 6% year-over-year, Walsh said, while adjusted tangible book value per share increased 4% to $70.85.
Andersen reaffirmed commitment to AIG’s Investor Day financial guidance, including operating EPS compound annual growth of over 20% through 2027, Core Operating ROE of 10% to 13% through 2027, reducing General Insurance’s expense ratio to less than 30% by 2027, supporting a 10% dividend increase in 2026, and improving Global Personal Insurance’s combined ratio to 94% by 2027. He also said the company’s recent transactions are “already proving to be accretive to AIG’s 2026 earnings.”
Zaffino closed the call by thanking employees and stakeholders and said Andersen will lead the company “from strength to strength” as the CEO transition approaches.
About American International Group NYSE: AIG
American International Group, Inc (AIG) is a global insurance holding company that provides a broad range of property-casualty insurance, specialty insurance, and risk management solutions to institutional, commercial and individual customers. Through its operating subsidiaries, AIG underwrites commercial and personal lines products—ranging from general liability, property, and casualty coverages to specialty lines such as professional liability, surety, cyber and marine—along with related services designed to help clients manage and transfer risk.
The company also has a long history in life insurance, retirement solutions and asset management through businesses that have been restructured or separated over time.
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