The stricken insurance giant AIG was hit by fresh controversy today when it was revealed that eleven executives being paid bonuses of a million dollars or more to stay have quit the company.

Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Attorney General, revealed this afternoon that the expensive retention payments were not enough to keep the staff on the payroll.

The news undermined the argument of government-appointed AIG boss Edward Liddy that the bonuses were necessary to retain “the best and brightest talent".

Mr Cuomo demanded to be told who had received $165 million worth of bonuses yesterday, but AIG refused to disclose the information despite accepting a multi-billion dollar bailout package from the government.

In a letter to Barney Frank, chairman of the finance committee in the US House of Representatives, he wrote: “Eleven of the individuals who received ’retention’ bonuses of one million dollars or more are no longer working at AIG, including one who received 4.6 million dollars.”

Mr Cuomo vowed to subpoena the insurer to force it to divulge the names, job descriptions and performance of the workers involved. He plans to investigate whether the bonus payments breached state law. The payments may be illegal if they were promised at a time when AIG knew that it did not have the cash to meet its commitments.

In the letter to Congress, Mr Cuomo also revealed that the ten AIG employees who received the largest bonuses were paid a total of $42 million dollars.

“These payments were all made to individuals . . . whose performance led to crushing losses and the near failure of AIG,” he wrote.

A total of 73 employees received a million dollars or more, Mr Cuomo said. “Thus, last week, AIG made more than 73 millionaires in the unit which lost so much money that it brought the firm to its knees, forcing a taxpayer bailout. Something is deeply wrong with this outcome,” he said.

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