Maurice Greenberg, legendary CEO of AIG, has told shareholders that the outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Asia will boost life insurance sales in Asia.

“Longer term, the SARS scare will be the biggest boost to sales of life insurance and related products that I can think of,” he said. “We are gearing up for a lot of that.”

AIG was founded in China 84 years ago and draws 30% of its revenue from Asia.