On a more general level, many of the problems in the insurance industry in the US arose from insuring credit default risk and from the credit default swaps and credit derivatives which served to make it difficult to identify where risks really lay and by whom it was ultimately held.
In addition, much of the risk was laid off in the banking sector so that the fortunes of the  4  BIS Review 53/2009  banking industry and the insurance industry in the US became intertwined.