AIG leans on travel insurance to drive turnaround; signs second deal in 5 months

After weathering multiple headwinds since the massive government-funded bailout nearly a decade ago, American International Group (AIG) is slowly regaining stability.

In the second business partnership involving travel insurance less than six months, the company entered into a tie-up with online tour company Expedia. The terms of the deal are not known yet.

Brand Expedia Group has selected AIG as its global travel insurance provider. The Travel Guard offerings of AIG will be available to customers while booking flights, hotels, packages, cars, and cruises on Expedia’s various websites.

In future, the companies will be expanding the insurance offerings to all Expedia brands across the world. As of now, customer claims will continue to be processed by the travel unit of Aon Plc.

As part of the efforts to fuel its recovery through low-risk deals, AIG has recently been exploring various investment avenues and business partnerships. In October last year, the company clinched a deal with United Airlines to offer travel insurance to passengers.

The Travel Guard offerings of AIG will be available to customers while making bookings on Expedia’s various websites

A few months later, AIG signed an agreement to buy Validus Holdings for about $6 billion.

Being America’s largest provider of insurance services, the recent initiatives by AIG to return to growth path are viewed as a reflection of increasing confidence in the insurance sector as a whole, which has been reeling under pressure from severe price squeeze for quite some time.

AIG’s gradual turnaround is being closely watched by the market, considering that the company had to sell assets worth several billions of dollars to repay its historic bailout.

AIG’s stock, which has been trading well below its long-term average for a long time, lost more than 1% in the initial trading hours on Friday.