MBIA began offering financial guaranty insurance in 1973 to the U.S. public finance market and later expanded to the structured finance and international public finance markets. By lowering borrowing costs, MBIA's insurance companies enhanced the ability of state and local governments to provide essential services to their citizens, facilitated the construction of schools, hospitals, roads, water and sewer systems, mass-transit systems and other essential public infrastructure projects and enabled more cost-effective and efficient issuance of structured finance securities
MBIA's insurance subsidiaries have not written a meaningful amount of new business since 2008 and their insured portfolios have declined in size from an aggregate of $841 billion of gross par insured at year-end 2008 to approximately $31 billion as of December 31, 2023. Correspondingly, the number of people employed by the company has also meaningfully declined from just under 500 people in 2008 to 60 people at present. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-2008, one of MBIA's insurance companies (MBIA Insurance Corporation) ceased writing new insurance and the other insurance company (National Public Finance Guarantee Corporation) ceased writing new business following a credit rating downgrade in mid-2017. Since then, MBIA has focused on managing its insurance companies for the benefit of shareholders, insured policyholders and their respective creditors. The company currently leases approximately 65,000 square feet of office space in a single site at its headquarters in Purchase, NY.
MBIA recognizes and embraces its responsibilities to the environment and to the promotion of social welfare. The company's operations are analytical and administrative in nature and it has no other material locations or operations aside from the headquarters site. Thus, while the company regularly assesses the impact of environmental risk on its insured portfolios, and has demonstrated a strong commitment to environmental and social responsibility, MBIA believes that the nature of its business, its small size and scale and current operations provide it with limited opportunities to meaningfully improve upon that record. MBIA’s Risk Oversight Committee nevertheless regularly reviews and implements policies and decisions related to environmental and social governance risks.