i would also like to give a shot back to mike mcraith for sharing your expertise. until this year the role of federal involvement in the insurance industry is centered on whether to establish a federal insurance regulator. i fortwith congressman always on legislation to establish a regulator for the insurance industry. let's congress our bill was focused on consumer choice in protections, advantages for agents and industry efficiencies. but much has changed our financial system since the last congress. the collapse of aig, the world's largest insurer has proven to be one of the most costly and dangerous corporate disasters in our nation's history with nearly 180 billion in federal tax dollars committed to aig plus 22 billion to other insurers, the federal government has made an unprecedented investment in an industry over which it has no regulatory authority. the need for regulatory oversight as never been greater and having a federal insurance commissioner who can work with the expected systemic risk regulator or council is vital to ensure proper oversight of an i

mcraith, mike understanding, and correctly, aig plus in five pieces. five separate entities, colleen will you want, and that the life insurance aspect was corner of by fire walls from the investment side that went sour. is that correct? >> that is correct, congressman. every state has adopted what we call the holding company act. the holding company act along with our other financial regulations requires each in-store to be financially independently liable and we have strict capital and accounting and investment requirements. one function of the holding company act is that insurer, the life insurers for example cannot release capital to the holding company to support the holding company without regulated approval. >> so, the investments that were made by a the aig life insurance section were separate from the investment arm that went sour; is that correct? >> that is correct. aig financial -- aig and our conservative estimate had 247 different companies. 71 of those were u.s. based insurance companies. each one was independently financially viable. the