Greenberg’s Starr Agency to Offer ACE and Berkshire Hathaway Products

Expanding its servicing capabilities for new and existing clients, Starr Technical Risks Agency, Inc. announced that it will begin immediately to offer commercial insurance coverages by ACE USA and Berkshire Hathaway Group.

Starr Technical, which specializes in complex industrial risks, also announced that it plans to expand internationally in the second quarter of 2006.

Richard Shaak, president and chief executive officer of Starr Technical, said the agreements with ACE and Berkshire Hathaway give Starr Tech $200 million of in-house underwriting capacity that it can access today to write business.

Starr Tech said these deals will enable it to continue to provide comprehensive first-party property and machinery breakdown insurance coverage to new and existing clients in the industries it serves. Working with ACE USA and Berkshire Hathaway Group will also allow Starr Tech to broaden its offerings across North America, Europe and Asia.

Starr Technical Risks Agency, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of C. V. Starr & Co., Inc., a managing agency now controlled by Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, AIG’s former chief executive officer. AIG and Greenberg have been waging a battle in the courts and the marketplace over the business that Starr formerly wrote for AIG.

The announcment of a deal with ACE and Berkshire Hathaway companies is just the latest in a series of moves by the competing parties. It comes 11 days after AIG’s announcemnt that it had terminated the agency relationship with Starr Technical Risks Agency, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

Also, this week, AIG Companies formed AIG Specialty Excess, an umbrella and excess casualty underwriting unit that the company says will handle the C.V. Starr business it used to write as well insuring new specialty and difficult-to-place classes of business including construction, transportation, public entities and educational institutions.

Topics AIG