In a Washington Post Article written by Jeffrey Birnbaum, there is a rift within the industry about having a new federal overseer of insurance.

In the article he states "The split, in its simplest terms, is between big and small companies. Most of the large, national firms back the proposal, which calls for a single, central regulator instead of the current state-run system. Small, regional insurers are generally happy to continue to deal with their own nearby overseers and do not want the extra layer of oversight that a new federal regulator would bring."

Read the full article here on the WashingtonPost.Com website.

American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG - News), the world's largest insurer, has filed a complaint in New York Supreme Court against former Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and six other former directors and officers, accusing them of breaching their fiduciary duty.

In the complaint, filed on Wednesday, AIG alleges Greenberg, former Chief Financial Officer Howard Smith and five others breached their fiduciary duty through "misappropriation of a special block of AIG shares worth approximately $20 billion in 2005."

Read the full story here on the Yahoo! Finance website.

Warren Buffett said on Tuesday that he has offered to help out troubled bond insurers by offering a second level of insurance on up to $800 billion in municipal bonds.

In an interview on CNBC (video link of the phone interview can be found here) he stated that he has offered to help out the bond insurers, however he was quick to point out that it wasn’t an altruistic gesture – he was doing it to make money.

At the time of the interview, they had been turned down by one company, and Buffett stated that the others were "not leaping at the door" to accept his offer.

A survey of financial sector risk managers and chief financial officers by Advisen has found that the subprime crisis is not materially affecting D&O or E&O pricing.

According to Yahoo Finance, Marsh & McLennan has named former ACE Ltd. CEO Brian Duperreault as Chief Executive.

Prior to taking this new job, Duperreault served as CEO of ACE Limited, the Bermuda based insurer Marsh & McLennan helped found in 1985.  Prior to ACE, Duperreault was with AIG for more than 20 years.

You can read the full article here on Yahoo Finance.

Executives at Societe Generale, a Paris based bank, reported that they had uncovered a massive fraud perpetrated by a trader who acted alone. Detected over the weekend, the trader had misled investors in 2007 and 2008 through a “scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions.”  The total fraud was $7.14 billion.

This is a three minute excerpt from the Diversity - Do We Walk the Talk Panel at the 2007 PLUS International Conference.  The question revolves around attracting the bright young college students of today to the insurance industry.  The question is answered by Harold Gray, Director of the Center for Insurance Education, Howard University.