The Travelers Companies, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides a wide range of commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals.
Property and Casualty Insurance Operations
Distribution methods include the use of local and national independent agents and brokers, agency aggregators and carrier-based agencies, as well as direct to consumer, affinity and other partner platforms. Some property and casual...
The Travelers Companies, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides a wide range of commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals.
Property and Casualty Insurance Operations
Distribution methods include the use of local and national independent agents and brokers, agency aggregators and carrier-based agencies, as well as direct to consumer, affinity and other partner platforms. Some property and casualty insurers writing commercial lines of business, including the company, offer products for alternative forms of risk protection in addition to traditional insurance products. These products include large deductible programs and various forms of self-insurance, some of which utilize captive insurance companies and risk retention groups.
Catastrophe Exposure
The company’s property and casualty insurance operations expose it to claims arising out of catastrophes. The company uses various analyses and methods, including proprietary and third-party modeling processes, to monitor and analyze underwriting risks of business in natural catastrophe-prone areas and target risk areas for conventional terrorist attacks (defined as attacks other than nuclear, biological, chemical or radiological events). The company relies, in part, upon these analyses to make underwriting decisions designed to manage its exposure on catastrophe-exposed business. For example, as a result of these analyses, the company has at various times limited the writing of new property and homeowners business in some markets and has selectively taken underwriting actions on new and existing business.
Business Insurance
Business Insurance offers a broad array of property and casualty insurance products and services to its customers, primarily in the United States, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and throughout other parts of the world, including as a corporate member of Lloyd’s. Business Insurance is organized as follows:
Domestic
Select Accounts provides small businesses with property and casualty insurance products and services, including commercial multi-peril, workers’ compensation, commercial automobile, general liability, and commercial property.
Middle Market provides mid-sized businesses with property and casualty insurance products and services, including workers’ compensation, general liability, commercial multi-peril, commercial automobile, and commercial property, as well as risk management, claims handling, and other services. Middle Market generally provides these products to mid-sized businesses through Commercial Accounts, as well as to targeted industries through Construction, Technology & Life Sciences, Public Sector Services and Energy, and additionally, provides mono-line umbrella and excess coverage insurance through Excess Casualty. Middle Market also provides insurance for goods in transit and movable objects, as well as builders’ risk insurance, through Inland Marine; insurance for the marine transportation industry and related services, as well as other businesses involved in international trade, through Ocean Marine; and comprehensive breakdown for equipment, including property and business interruption, through Boiler & Machinery.
National Accounts provides large companies with casualty insurance products and services, including workers’ compensation, commercial automobile and general liability, generally utilizing loss-sensitive products, on both a bundled and unbundled basis, as well as risk management, claims administration and other insurance-related services. National Accounts also includes the company’s commercial residual market business, which primarily offers workers’ compensation claims, policy management, and other administrative services related to the involuntary market. National Accounts also offers insurance-related services, such as claims administration, risk management, loss control, and risk management information services through Constitution State Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company.
National Property and Other provides traditional and customized commercial property insurance programs to large and mid-sized customers through National Property, as well as insurance coverages and programs provided by Northland Transportation, Agribusiness, Northfield, and National Programs. Northland Transportation provides insurance coverage for the commercial trucking industry. Agribusiness serves small- to medium-sized agricultural businesses, including farms, ranches and other agricultural-related operations. Northfield includes commercial property and general liability policies for small, difficult to place commercial business primarily on an excess and surplus lines basis. National Programs offers tailored property and casualty insurance programs on an admitted basis for customers with common risk characteristics or coverage requirements.
International
International, through its operations in Canada, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, provides property and casualty insurance and risk management services to several customer groups, including among others, those in the technology, manufacturing, public services, and commercial real estate industry sectors. International also provides insurance for both the foreign exposures of United States organizations and the United States exposures of foreign organizations through Global Services. At its Lloyd’s syndicate (Syndicate 5000), for which the company provides 100% of the capital, International underwrites five principal businesses — marine, energy, property, aviation, and special risks.
Business Insurance also includes Simply Business, a leading provider of small business insurance policies primarily in the United Kingdom, and Business Insurance Other, which primarily comprises the company’s asbestos and environmental liabilities and other runoff operations, including certain assumed reinsurance arrangements.
Principal Markets and Methods of Distribution
Business Insurance markets and distributes products through thousands of independent agencies and brokers. Agencies and brokers are serviced by 88 field offices and supported by customer service centers where the company performs services for agents for a fee and centralized business centers where the company processes new and renewal business that meet certain underwriting criteria.
Business Insurance builds relationships with well-established, independent insurance agencies and brokers. In selecting new independent agencies and brokers to distribute its products, Business Insurance considers, among other factors, each agency’s or broker’s financial strength, staff experience and strategic fit with the company’s operating and marketing plans. Once an agency or broker is appointed, Business Insurance regularly monitors its performance. The majority of products offered in the United States are distributed through independent agents and brokers, many of whom also sell the company’s Personal Insurance and Bond & Specialty Insurance products. Business Insurance continues to make significant investments to enable real-time interface capabilities with its independent agencies and brokers.
Domestic
Select Accounts markets and distributes products and services to small businesses, generally with fewer than 50 employees, through a large network of independent agents and brokers. Products offered by Select Accounts are guaranteed-cost policies, including packaged products covering property and liability exposures. Each small business risk is independently evaluated via an automated underwriting platform which in turn enables agents to quote, bind and issue a substantial amount of new small business risks in an efficient manner. Risks with more complex characteristics are underwritten with the assistance of company personnel.
Middle Market markets and distributes products and services primarily to mid-sized businesses with 50 to 1,000 employees through a large network of independent agents and brokers. The company offers a full line of products to its Middle Market customers with an emphasis on guaranteed-cost programs. Each account is underwritten based on the unique risk characteristics, loss history and coverage need of the account. The ability to underwrite at this detailed level allows Middle Market to have a broad risk appetite and a diversified customer base. Within Middle Market, products and services are tailored to certain targeted industry segments of significant size and complexity that require unique underwriting, claims handling services, risk management or other insurance-related products and services.
National Accounts markets and distributes products and services to large companies through a large network of national and regional brokers. Products offered by National Accounts are primarily casualty programs that utilize loss-sensitive products, such as large deductible, and to a lesser extent, retrospectively rated insurance and self-insured retention plans. National Accounts also offers insurance-related services, such as claims administration, risk management, loss control and risk management information services through Constitution State Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company. The commercial residual market business of National Accounts services approximately 36% of the total workers’ compensation assigned risk market, making the company one of the largest servicing carriers in the industry.
National Property and Other markets and distributes products and services to a wide customer base, providing traditional and customized insurance programs to a broad range of customer sizes through a large network of agents and brokers. National Property and Other also provides insurance coverage to the excess and surplus lines market, which is characterized by the absence of regulation related to rate and form and allows for more pricing and coverage flexibility to write certain classes of business. In working with agents or program managers on a brokerage basis, National Property and Other underwrites the business internally and sets the premium level. In working with agents or program managers with delegated underwriting authority, the agents produce and underwrite business subject to pricing and underwriting guidelines that have been specifically designed for each facility or program.
International markets and distributes products and services principally through brokers in each of the countries in which it operates. International also writes business at Lloyd’s, where its products are distributed through Lloyd’s wholesale and retail brokers. By virtue of Lloyd’s worldwide licenses, Business Insurance has access to international markets across the world.
Effective January 1, 2025, the company renewed a quota share reinsurance agreement with subsidiaries of Fidelis Insurance Holdings Limited (Fidelis) for 2025 pursuant to which the company assumes 20% of the subject gross written premiums of Fidelis on a risk-attaching basis, subject to a loss ratio cap. The company’s portion of premiums from Fidelis is reported as part of the international results of Business Insurance. The company also has a minority investment in Fidelis.
Product Lines
Business Insurance provides the following types of coverages:
Domestic
Workers’ Compensation: Provides coverage for employers for specified benefits payable under state or federal law for workplace injuries to employees. There are typically four types of benefits payables under workers’ compensation policies: medical benefits, disability benefits, death benefits, and vocational rehabilitation benefits. The company emphasizes managed care cost containment strategies, which involve employers, employees and care providers in a collaborative effort that focuses on the injured employee’s early return to work and cost-effective quality care.
Commercial Automobile: Provides coverage for businesses against losses incurred from personal bodily injury, bodily injury to third parties, property damage to an insured’s vehicle and property damage to other vehicles and other property resulting from the ownership, maintenance or use of automobiles and trucks in a business.
Commercial Property: Provides coverage for loss of or damage to buildings, inventory and equipment resulting from a variety of events, including among others, hurricanes and other windstorms, tornadoes, earthquakes, hail, wildfires, severe winter weather, floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, theft, vandalism, fires, explosions, terrorism and financial loss due to business interruption resulting from covered property damage. Commercial property also includes specialized equipment insurance, which provides coverage for loss or damage resulting from the mechanical breakdown of boilers and machinery, and ocean and inland marine insurance, which provides coverage for goods in transit and unique, one-of-a-kind exposures.
General Liability: Provides coverages for businesses against third-party claims arising from accidents occurring on their premises or arising out of their operations, including as a result of injuries sustained from products sold. Coverages may also include directors’ and officers’ liability arising in their official capacities, employment practices liability insurance, fiduciary liability for trustees and sponsors of pension, health and welfare, and other employee benefit plans, errors and omissions insurance for employees, agents, professionals and others arising from acts or failures to act under specified circumstances, cyber liability, as well as umbrella and excess insurance.
Commercial Multi-Peril: Provides a combination of the property and liability coverages described in the foregoing product line descriptions.
The company offers the above coverages through the following types of products and services:
guaranteed-cost insurance products, where the premiums charged are not adjusted for actual loss experience during the covered period;
loss-sensitive insurance products, including large deductible and retrospectively rated policies, where fees or premiums are adjusted based on actual loss experience of the insured during the policy period; and
service programs, which are generally sold to the company’s National Accounts customers, where the company receives fees rather than premiums for providing insurance-related services, such as claims administration, risk management, loss control and risk management information services.
The company also participates in state assigned risk pools as a servicing carrier and pool participant.
International
Provides coverage for employers’ liability (similar to workers’ compensation coverage in the United States), public and product liability (the equivalent of general liability), professional indemnity (similar to professional liability coverage), commercial property, commercial automobile, marine, aviation, onshore and offshore energy, construction, terrorism, personal accident, and kidnap & ransom. Marine provides coverage for ship hulls, cargoes carried, private yachts, marine-related liability, ports and terminals, and fine art. Aviation provides coverage for worldwide aviation risks, including physical damage and liabilities for airline, aerospace, general aviation, aviation war, and space risks. Personal accident provides financial protection in the event of death or disablement due to accidental bodily injury, while kidnap & ransom provides financial protection against kidnap, hijack, illegal detention, and extortion. While the covered hazards may be similar to those in the U.S. market, the different legal environments can make the product risks and coverage terms very different from those the company faces in the United States.
Bond & Specialty Insurance
Bond & Specialty Insurance offers surety, fidelity, management liability, professional liability, and other property and casualty coverages and related risk management services to its customers, primarily in the United States, and certain surety and specialty insurance products in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Brazil (through a joint venture, as described below), in each case utilizing various degrees of financially-based underwriting approaches. The range of coverages includes performance, payment and commercial surety bonds for construction and general commercial enterprises; management liability coverages, including directors’ and officers’ liability, employment practices liability, fidelity liability, fiduciary liability and cyber risk for public corporations, private companies, not-for-profit organizations, and financial institutions; professional liability coverage for a variety of professionals, including among others, lawyers and design professionals; in the United States only, property, workers’ compensation, auto and general liability for financial institutions; and transactional liability coverages to public and private companies.
Bond & Specialty Insurance’s surety business in Brazil is conducted through Junto Holding Brasil S.A. (Junto). The company owns 49.5% of Junto, a market leader in surety coverages in Brazil. This joint venture investment is accounted for using the equity method and is included in ‘other investments’ on the consolidated balance sheet.
On November 3, 2023, the company announced an agreement to acquire Corvus Insurance Holdings, Inc. (Corvus), a cyber insurance managing general underwriter. On January 2, 2024, the company completed its acquisition of all issued and outstanding shares of Corvus.
Principal Markets and Methods of Distribution
Bond & Specialty Insurance markets and distributes the vast majority of its products in the United States through many of the same independent agencies and brokers that distribute Business Insurance’s products in the United States. Bond & Specialty Insurance builds relationships with well-established, independent insurance agencies and brokers. In selecting new independent agencies and brokers to distribute its products, Bond & Specialty Insurance considers, among other factors, each agency’s or broker’s profitability, financial stability, staff experience and strategic fit with its operating and marketing plans. Once an agency or broker is appointed, its ongoing performance is regularly monitored. Bond & Specialty Insurance continues to make investments to enable real-time interface capabilities with its independent agencies and brokers. Bond & Specialty Insurance also writes certain products through managing general agents and managing general underwriters.
Product Lines
Bond & Specialty Insurance writes the following types of coverages:
Domestic
Fidelity and Surety: Provides fidelity insurance coverage, which protects an insured for loss due to embezzlement or misappropriation of funds by an employee, and surety, which is a three-party agreement whereby the surety company agrees to pay a third party or to complete an obligation in response to the default, acts or omissions of a bonded party. Surety bonds are generally provided for construction performance; legal matters, such as appeals; compliance and licensing; and other performance obligations.
General Liability: Provides coverage for specialized liability exposures, as well as transactional liability coverages.
Other: Coverages include Commercial Property, Workers’ Compensation, Commercial Automobile and Commercial Multi-Peril.
International
Fidelity and Surety and certain General Liability products are provided internationally to various customer groups.
Personal Insurance
Personal Insurance offers a broad range of property and casualty insurance products and services covering individuals’ personal risks, primarily in the United States, as well as in Canada. Personal Insurance’s primary products of automobile and homeowners insurance are complemented by a broad suite of related coverages.
Principal Markets and Methods of Distribution
Domestic
Personal Insurance products are marketed and distributed primarily through thousands of independent agents and brokers located throughout the United States, supported by personnel in seven sales regions. In addition, sales and service are provided to customers through contact centers. Principal markets for Personal Insurance products are spread throughout the contiguous United States.
In selecting new independent agencies to distribute its products, Personal Insurance considers many factors, including financial stability, staff experience, lead sources, customer facing online and digital capabilities and operating and marketing plans. Once an agency is appointed, Personal Insurance regularly monitors its performance.
Agents can access the company’s agency service portal for a number of resources, including customer service, marketing and claims management. In addition, agencies can choose to shift the ongoing service responsibility for Personal Insurance’s customers to the company’s Customer Care Program, where the company provides, on behalf of an agency, a comprehensive array of customer service needs, including billing inquiries, coverage discussions and account changes. Approximately two thousand agencies take advantage of this service alternative, for which they generally pay a fee.
Personal Insurance also markets and distributes its products directly to consumers, largely through direct mail and digital marketing, and through affinity partners, including employers, credit unions and consumer associations. Personal Insurance handles the sales for these programs through the company’s contact center locations and the company’s wholly owned independent agency. Personal Insurance also markets and distributes its products on other distribution platforms, including carrier partnerships. The company has distribution agreement with the agency affiliate of GEICO to underwrite a portion of their homeowners business.
International
In Canada, the company markets and distributes its personal insurance products principally through hundreds of brokers located throughout the country.
Product Lines
Domestic
The primary coverages in Personal Insurance are personal automobile and homeowners and other insurance sold to individuals. Personal Insurance had approximately 8.8 million active policies (i.e., policies-in-force) in the United States as of December 31, 2024.
Personal Insurance writes the following types of coverages:
Automobile provides coverage for liability to others for both bodily injury and property damage, uninsured motorist protection, and for physical damage to an insured’s own vehicle from collision, fire, flood, hail, and theft. In addition, many states require policies to provide first-party personal injury protection, frequently referred to as no-fault coverage.
Homeowners and Other provides protection against losses to dwellings and contents from a variety of perils (excluding flooding) as well as coverage for personal liability. The company writes homeowners insurance for dwellings, condominiums and tenants, and rental properties. The company also writes coverage for boats and yachts, valuable personal items, such as jewelry, umbrella liability, and weddings and special events.
International
International provides automobile and homeowners and other coverages in Canada (similar to coverages in the United States). Personal Insurance had approximately 425,000 active policies in Canada as of December 31, 2024.
Claims Management
The company’s claim functions are managed through its Claims Services organization, with locations in the United States and in the other countries where it does business.
Reinsurance
The company reinsures a portion of the risks it underwrites in order to manage its exposure to losses and to protect its capital. The company cedes to reinsurers a portion of these risks and pays premiums based upon the risk and exposure of the policies subject to such reinsurance. The company utilizes a variety of reinsurance agreements to manage its exposure to large property and casualty losses, including facultative as well as catastrophe and individual risk treaties. Ceded reinsurance involves credit risk, except with regard to mandatory pools and associations, and is predominantly subject to aggregate loss limits. Although the reinsurer is liable to the company to the extent of the reinsurance ceded, the company remains liable as the direct insurer on all risks reinsured. Reinsurance recoverables are reported after reductions for known insolvencies and after allowances for uncollectible amounts. The company also holds collateral, including trust agreements, escrow funds and letters of credit, under certain reinsurance agreements. The company monitors the financial condition of reinsurers on a regular basis and reviews its reinsurance arrangements periodically. Reinsurers are selected based on their financial condition, business practices, the price of their product offerings and the value of collateral provided. After reinsurance is purchased, the company has limited ability to manage the credit risk of a reinsurer. In addition, in a number of jurisdictions, particularly the European Union and the United Kingdom and a small number of U.S. states, a reinsurer is permitted to transfer a reinsurance arrangement to another reinsurer, which may be less creditworthy, without a counterparty’s consent, provided that the transfer has been approved by the applicable regulatory and/or court authority.
Investment Operations
The majority of funds available for investment are deployed in a widely diversified portfolio of high quality, liquid, taxable U.S. government, tax-exempt and taxable U.S. municipal and taxable corporate and U.S. agency mortgage-backed bonds. The company regularly monitors the effective duration of its fixed maturity investments, and the company’s investment purchases and sales are executed with the objective of having adequate funds available to satisfy its insurance and debt obligations. Generally, the expected principal and interest payments produced by the company’s fixed maturity portfolio adequately fund the estimated runoff of the company’s insurance reserves. The company manages the investment duration relative to its liability duration. In 2024, the estimated effective duration of the company’s portfolio of fixed maturity and short-term security investments increased, primarily driven by the impact of higher interest rates, as well as the composition of the investment portfolio. At December 31, 2024, the estimated effective duration of the company’s portfolio of fixed maturity and short-term security investments was greater than the estimated effective duration of the company’s net insurance liabilities. The substantial amount by which the fair value of the fixed maturity portfolio exceeds the value of the net insurance liabilities, as well as the positive cash flow from newly sold policies and the large amount of high-quality liquid bonds, contributes to the company’s ability to fund claim payments without having to sell illiquid assets or access its credit facilities.
The company also invests much smaller amounts in equity securities, real estate, private equity limited partnerships, hedge funds, and real estate partnerships and joint ventures. These investment classes have the potential for higher returns but also involve varying degrees of risk, including less stable rates of return and less liquidity.
Regulation
The company’s domestic insurance subsidiaries are collectively licensed to transact insurance business in all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands and are subject to regulation in both the various states and jurisdictions in which the subsidiaries are legally domiciled and in which the subsidiaries transact business.
While insurance in the United States is regulated on a legal-entity basis, the NAIC has adopted changes to its Model Holding Company Act that some states, including the State of Connecticut, have enacted to allow the insurance commissioner to be designated as the groupwide supervisor (i.e., lead state commissioner) for the insurance holding company system based upon certain criteria, including the jurisdiction of domicile of the insurance subsidiaries holding the majority of the insurance group’s premiums, assets, or liabilities. Based upon these criteria, the State of Connecticut Insurance Department is designated as the company’s lead regulator and coordinates supervisory colleges for the company.
The company's principal domestic insurance subsidiaries are domiciled in the state of Connecticut. The company’s insurance subsidiaries based in Canada, and the Canadian branch of one of the company’s U.S. insurance subsidiaries, are regulated for solvency and risk management purposes by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) under the provisions of the Insurance Companies Act (Canada). These Canadian subsidiaries and the Canadian branch are also subject to Canadian provincial and territorial insurance legislation and regulation, primarily governing market conduct, including pricing, underwriting, coverage, and claim conduct, in varying degrees by province/territory and by product line.
The company’s insurance subsidiaries based in the United Kingdom (U.K.) are regulated by two regulatory bodies, The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). One of the company’s the U.K. insurance subsidiaries is also authorized in the U.S. as a surplus lines insurer subject to the U.S. state regulation applicable to such insurers.
The company’s managing agency (Travelers Syndicate Management Limited, or TSML) of its Lloyd’s syndicate (Syndicate 5000 at Lloyd’s) is also regulated by the PRA and the FCA, which have delegated certain regulatory responsibilities to the Council of Lloyd’s. Travelers Syndicate 5000 is able to write, or reinsure, business in respect of over 200 countries and territories throughout the world by virtue of Lloyd’s international licenses. In each such jurisdiction, the policies written by TSML, as part of Lloyd’s, are subject to the laws and insurance regulations of that jurisdiction.
Travelers is conducting its European insurance operations through an insurance subsidiary that is incorporated in the Republic of Ireland and authorized and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Certain operations are conducted in the U.K. through a U.K. branch of the Irish subsidiary, which is supervised by the PRA and FCA, as well as the Central Bank of Ireland.
The company’s operations in the Republic of Ireland are also subject to regulation by the European Union (EU). Generally, EU requirements are adopted by the EU and then implemented by enabling legislation in the member countries. Significant areas of oversight and influence by the EU include capital and solvency requirements (Solvency II), competition law and antitrust regulation, intermediary and distribution regulation, gender discrimination, sustainability disclosures, including climate change disclosure (due to the requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, or CSRD, and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, or CSDDD), artificial intelligence and data security and privacy.
Regulators in countries where the company has operations are working with the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) (and with the NAIC, the Federal Reserve and FIO in the U.S.) to consider changes to insurance company supervision, including group supervision and group capital requirements.
Intellectual Property
With respect to trademarks specifically, the company has registrations in many countries, including the United States, for its material trademarks, including the ‘Travelers’ name and the company’s iconic umbrella logo.
History
The Travelers Companies, Inc. was founded in 1853.
