Insurance industry icon Hank Greenberg turns 100

By David Bull

May 5 - (The Insurer) - Iconic industry leader and CV Starr honorary chairman Maurice “Hank” Greenberg turned 100 yesterday.

Greenberg maintains a legendary status within the industry for building AIG as its CEO into the most powerful insurance company in the world over a four-decade career.

He led AIG since its foundation in 1968 before exiting in 2005 after being caught in the crosshairs of campaigning former New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer.

Greenberg then transformed CV Starr into a multi-billion-dollar global insurer while in his late 80s and 90s, and in the face of fierce opposition from his former company and prosecutors.

Starr’s insurance operations have grown to become an $11.9 billion gross premiums written business, rated A by AM Best.

Greenberg was chairman and CEO of CV Starr and Starr International Company but stepped into the honorary chairman role earlier this year, with his son Jeff Greenberg succeeding him as chairman and co-CEO of CV Starr & Co. Jeff Greenberg’s younger sibling Scott Greenberg is also co-CEO.

While Jeff and Scott work at CV Starr, Hank Greenberg’s third son Evan is the chairman and CEO of Chubb.

Hank Greenberg is honorary chairman of the Starr Foundation, which has grown to become one of the largest private foundations in the U.S., making more than $3.8 billion of grants worldwide in education, medicine and healthcare, human needs, public policy, culture and the environment.

As well as his own role in building AIG and CV Starr, Hank Greenberg is credited for many of the industry’s leading executives that have emerged from under his leadership over the decades.

He has also been viewed as a lobbyist for the insurance industry, as well as fostering deep connections in Asia, and in particular China, reflecting the earliest roots of CV Starr and the esteem Hank Greenberg is held in the region.