AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP INC

9. Deferred Policy Acquisition Costs

DAC represent those costs that are incremental and directly related to the successful acquisition of new or renewal of existing insurance contracts. We defer incremental costs that result directly from, and are essential to, the acquisition or renewal of an insurance contract. Such DAC generally include agent or broker commissions and bonuses, premium taxes, and medical and inspection fees that would not have been incurred if the insurance contract had not been acquired or renewed. Each cost is analyzed to assess whether it is fully deferrable. We partially defer costs, including certain commissions, when we do not believe that the entire cost is directly related to the acquisition or renewal of insurance contracts. Commissions that are not deferred to DAC are recorded in General operating and other expenses in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income (Loss).

We also defer a portion of employee total compensation and payroll-related fringe benefits directly related to time spent performing specific acquisition or renewal activities, including costs associated with the time spent on underwriting, policy issuance and processing, and sales force contract selling. The amounts deferred are derived based on successful efforts for each distribution channel and/or cost center from which the cost originates.

The following table presents a rollforward of DAC: