The FBI, working with other regulators including the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is reviewing the AIG situation and other companies to determine whether fraudulent accounting issues are more pervasive in the insurance business (see here and here).

The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the investigations, commented:

The FBI has found in previous corporate-fraud cases that they tended to involve more than one player in an industry.  “If one was doing it, others had to stay competitive.”

The FBI Financial Crimes Section has 405 corporate-fraud cases open…That represents a doubling of the number of pending cases at the end of fiscal year 2003.

The FBI did not disclose the number of insurance related cases, and did not expect to make any announcements regarding its investigations in the near future.