AIG is now 80% owned by the U.S. government. It is selling assets to repay aid, and as part of its restructuring plan, contributed its general and property/casualty operations to Chartis earlier this year. AIG says it eventually plans to sell or spin off a minority stake.

"We want to have the ability to raise capital easily," Schimek said. "We want to be able to access the credit markets without depending..."

Schimek added that Chartis will prepare separate financial statements for the year.

Such moves toward independence will differentiate Chartis from some other AIG units that have had to lean on the parent company for help. In its third-quarter earnings report, AIG said it helped support its aircraft leasing business and its mortgage insurance unit.

Chartis, which includes AIG's worldwide general and property/casualty insurance operations, has generally performed better than AIG's other operations, which held more mortgage-related investments. AIG's near breakdown and subsequent government bailout were triggered primarily by credit-default-swap and investment losses tied to the faltering U.S. mortgage market.

In the third quarter, Chartis reported operating income of $722 million before net realized capital gains and losses, up from $105 million in the year-ago quarter. Premiums were $8.1 billion, down 13% from the year-ago quarter.

Of the ignominious hurricane force winds that drove some customers away after AIG's problems surfaced last year, "I'd say they are dramatically less," Schimek said. He attributed the decline in premiums to the weak economy, and furthered that after adjusting for the sale of its Brazil operations, the effect of foreign exchange, and the company's pullback from the workers' compensation business, the decline in net premiums worked out to about 6%, "which is in line with the market," he said.

Chartis is one of the biggest workers' compensation insurers. It is letting some of that business go to competitors who are pricing the business too low, Schimek explained. He expects "a reasonably soft market" to continue in insurance pricing.

Some Chartis employees have left the company, though he downplayed the idea that the departures were due to strict compensation controls on AIG. "People will move on in their careers whether or not we have the AIG situation. The silver lining is that a lot of people have stepped up into new roles. So there have been at least as many positive moves as a result of headline departures."

He said about 20 Chartis employees come under the purview of Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama Administration's special master of compensation for companies that received extraordinary bailouts.

Readers may write to writer Lonce LaMon at lonce@adjustercom.com