A son of industry icon Maurice ''Hank'' Greenberg, 50-year-old Evan heads Ace, a major Bermuda-based insurer that is one of the most profitable in the industry. The company is a big underwriter in Asia and a leading US insurer against big corporate losses, such as those from asbestos claims.

Evan Greenberg has so far managed to keep a low profile and mollify authorities - unlike his father, who was ousted in March after heading giant American International Group for 37 years, and older brother Jeffrey, who resigned last fall as chief executive of Marsh & McLennan after New York State Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer filed civil bid-rigging charges against the company and publicly signaled his desire for Jeffrey Greenberg's ouster.

In comments to investors, Evan Greenberg has acknowledged his own company's shortcomings and called for industry-wide reforms. But he also said Ace has weathered an internal review of bid-rigging allegations without major findings of wrongdoing beyond those disclosed earlier this year. At the time of the disclosure, Ace fired three executives, suspended two and forced the resignation of the head of its US operations, who reported to Greenberg.

``We are an ethical company,'' he said on a conference call in May. ``We have conducted ourselves in a fit and proper manner.''

Greenberg has decided to fight a civil suit filed by Connecticut Attorney-General Richard Blumenthal alleging that Ace paid an improper commission to Marsh to win a state contract to administer US$80 million (HK$624 million) in workers' compensation claims.

Greenberg has said the company believes the case has no merit, and Ace has a filed a motion to dismiss the claim. Some observers say the company is confident that Greenberg will weather the investigations. But it

faces plenty of questions. According to documents Ace filed in March with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has received 43 subpoenas, civil demands and other queries from attorneys general in 10 jurisdictions and 10 state insurance departments or other regulators.

State authorities are investigating whether insurance firms took kickbacks or colluded with one another to increase prices. They are also looking into whether companies misled investors by accounting for a type of insurance as a loan when there was no transfer of risk. Greenberg himself has cautioned that the company is still conducting the second half of a two-part internal review into the company's use of ``finite risk'' insurance, an income-smoothing device misused by some companies to cover up problems on their books.

Allegations of such misuse sparked investigations into AIG and Berkshire Hathaway's General Re insurance unit. The internal review of Ace is due in a month or so. State and federal investigations are also continuing into accounting and business practices at AIG, where Evan Greenberg worked for 25 years, including the last three as chief operating officer under his father.

Evan was once considered the least likely family member to run an insurance company. His father had run AIG since 1967 and turned it into the world's largest insurer. Brother Jeffrey, a graduate of Choate School in Connecticut, Brown University and Georgetown law school, joined a Marsh insurance brokerage unit and rose quickly. He joined AIG in 1978 and was considered a potential successor to his father, until the two fell out and Jeffrey abruptly left in 1995. He later became head of Marsh, a big source of business for AIG.

Evan, by contrast, did not graduate from college and drifted after finishing at an alternative high school before joining an AIG subsidiary in Colorado in 1975. Evan served in Korea and Japan and was named to head AIG's foreign general insurance business. He was named president and chief operating officer in 1997.

As part of his duties, Evan oversaw AIG's auto warranty business, which turned into a ``disastrous'' investment, resulting in a US$210 million loss by 1999, according to a civil fraud suit filed by Spitzer against AIG last month.

In litigation brought in 1999 against AIG by a claims adjuster, Warrantech Automotive of Texas, Evan testified in a 2001 deposition that his father held him responsible for the debacle.

In September 2000, Evan left. The auto warranty losses became a centerpiece of Spitzer's civil suit against AIG. AIG says it is cooperating with all investigations and Maurice Greenberg has denied the allegations. A year after leaving AIG, Evan Greenberg joined Ace, a company packed with AIG alumni and one of AIG's fiercest rivals.

THE WASHINGTON POST