The Travelers Companies

Travelers Insurance is an insurance company, committed to keeping pace with the ever-changing needs of its customers. Travelers is an insurance leader, committed to keeping pace with the ever-changing needs of their customers and anticipating their needs for the future. There is no stronger testament to their dedication to protecting customers from loss than their continued innovation and ability to transform their industry. In fact, from the first-ever auto and space travel policies and hybrid car discount, to the 2009 founding of The Travelers Institute for public policy, their history of advancements has propelled their company—and their industry—towards ever higher standards for customers. Travelers is a company that works hard at the science of what they do: they analyze information, process perspectives and measure results to create the best combination of products and services. They work equally hard at customer service and how they interact with the people whom they do business. Over the years, they've strived to earn their customer's loyalty by continually improving their abilities to listen and respond to their needs.

1853: Saint Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co. was founded March 5, 1853, in St Paul, Minnesota, to serve local customers in lieu of waiting for claim payments from insurance companies on the east coast.

1854: In February 1854, the company issued its first policy, a mutual policy for $800.

1855: The St Paul sustained its first fire loss in April 1855 when a row of offices and a bakery burned to the ground, resulting in $3,000 in claims.

1859: The Travelers Insurance Company was founded in Hartford by a stone contractor, James Batterson, who became aware for the first time of accident insurance for travelers (i.e., an early form of travel insurance) while traveling in England in 1859 from Leamington to London.

1861: A period of stagnation occurred starting in 1861, during the Civil War.

1863: Public Company Incorporated: 1863 as The Travelers Insurance CompanyEmployees: 35,000Assets: $56.75 billionStock Exchanges: New York Pacific London

1864: On March 1, 1864, local banker James Bolter jokingly inquired of Batterson how much it would cost to insure him up to $5,000 for accidental death for the journey from the post office to his home. The company did not issue its first regular insurance policy until April 5, 1864, but informally entered into its first insurance agreement a month earlier. 1864: *Introduced accident insurance.

1865: He was succeeded by James C. Burbank, the company's first full-time president, in April 1865. That year it sold the first accident insurance in the United States, and in 1865 it began selling life insurance, thus becoming the first company in the country to offer more than one type of insurance. Also in 1865, The St Paul reorganized as a stock company and changed its name to St Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company.

1867: A shareholder-elected board voted to pay semiannual dividends, and in July 1867 the company issued its first stock dividend, of $1.50 per share.

1870: The red umbrella first appeared in Travelers advertising as early as 1870, but at that time was not yet the official logo.

1871: The St Paul enhances its reputation by paying, in full, all claims from the Great Chicago Fire.

1877: Shortly thereafter The St Paul was faced with the insurance price war of 1877.

1885: Employer’s liability, a predecessor of workers’ compensation, was first sold in the United States by a British company in 1885.

1896: In buying the Baltimore-based USF&G, a firm founded in 1896, The St Paul propelled itself from the 13th to the eighth largest property and casualty insurer in the nation.

1897: In 1897, Travelers wrote its first automobile policy.

1901: By the time Batterson died in 1901, Travelers also offered health, liability, and automotive insurance, at a time when many insurers still restricted themselves to a single line of insurance. Created through the consolidation of several producers of metal cans for the food industry, American Can monopolized 90 percent of the nation’s can-making capacity when it was founded in 1901.

1902: Before 1902 the company’s agents were responsible for selling policies, recruiting agents, and for performing administrative chores.

1903: In 1903, the first class of 12 agents began training at the industry’s first vocational school, started by Travelers. 1903: *Opened an insurance school.

1906: The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 took a heavy toll on The St Paul's new product development plans, however.

1907: He started his career at Travelers as an office boy for J. G. Batterson, and was soon promoted to actuary, and, in 1907, secretary of the company.

1913: Group insurance, which would later make up a substantial segment of Travelers’s business, was introduced in 1913, written for the employees of the Ohio Electric Railway Company.

1917: In 1917, The St Paul covered the loss of 260 vessels, totaling more than $4 million, most of which was repaid by Germany over 50 years.

1919: After World War I, in May 1919, the Travelers introduced a comprehensive aviation insurance program which included life, public liability, workers’ compensation, and passenger accident policies. 1919: The Travelers Tower was built in Hartford, Connecticut, and stood as the tallest building in New England at the time.

1920: Travelers also published one of the first aviation-safety publications, Airplanes and Safety, in 1920.

1926: The St Paul's leadership decided, therefore, that a liability company was needed, and in 1926 a subsidiary, St Paul Mercury Indemnity Company, was formed.

1929: When the stock market crashed in 1929, many institutional investors were ruined. The St Paul also added aircraft insurance and surety bonds to its product line in 1929.

1933: One such incident occurred in 1933, when a policyholder sent a letter to the company threatening to kill himself unless Travelers agreed to loan him one-third of his policy’s face value for three years at 5%. The letter gave instructions to reply in the public notices section of The New York Times.

1938: After serving as The St Paul's president for 27 years, Frederic Bigelow became chairman in 1938, and Charles F. Codere became The St Paul's fifth president.

1948: In 1948, Codere became chairman, and A. B. Jackson was elected The St Paul's new president.

1955: Weill was born to Polish immigrants and was the first in his family to earn a college degree, graduating from Cornell University in 1955. In 1955 all of a homeowner’s insurance needs—fire, personal liability, windstorm, medical coverage for outsiders injured on the premises, and living expenses when a home becomes uninhabitable—were included in the Homeowners Policy. Budd had joined the company in 1955 as an actuarial assistant.

1956: Established a weather research center.

1957: In 1957, a building was dedicated to an education center, and a dormitory, Denniston Hall, named for the first instructor housed the students. 1957 With acquisition of the Western Life Insurance Company, The St Paul enters the life insurance market.

1958: In 1958, Travelers opened its first suburban neighborhood branch office, near Atlanta, Georgia. Also in 1958, with business booming, Travelers installed its first computer to help keep up with the paperwork.

1959: In the ten years after the war, accidents increased 30%, and the cost of bodily injury claims rose 86%. Travelers began losing money on its automobile liability lines until 1959, when the company began basing insurance rates on a driver’s safety record.

1960: Travelers introduced its logo—a red umbrella to symbolize protection—in 1960. Afterward, he worked his way up from Wall Street messenger to stockbroker to cofounder of Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill, a small brokerage firm, in 1960.

1961: Introduced a new coverage option for electronic data processing.

1963: When Codere retired in 1963, Jackson succeeded him and Ronald M. Hubbs became The St Paul's next president.

1964: By 1964 Western Life sales had more than doubled.

1965: In 1965 the company was renamed The Travelers Corporation. In 1965 Sterling Tooker, the company’s new president, announced Travelers’s intention to respond to the changes that were slowing the company’s growth. At the end of 1965 Travelers Insurance Company reorganized its capital structure, becoming The Travelers Corporation.

1967: In 1967, The Travelers entered the mutual funds business when it opened the Travelers Equities Fund.

1968: The company’s diversification served as a buffer in 1968 when property and casualty underwritings lost $64 million. 1968 Company reorganizes under a holding company, The St Paul Companies, Inc. 1968: *Pioneered the “CAT Van,” a specially modified RV used as a mobile claim office to assist policyholders after disasters.

1969: In 1969, Sterling Tooker resigned as president and CEO of The Travelers Corporation and was succeeded by Roger C. Wilkins.

1970: In 1970, St Paul Guardian Insurance Company was formed to market personal lines of insurance.

1971: In 1971, Morrison H. Beach became The Travelers’ president and Roger Wilkins became chairman. 1971: *Established the Office of Consumer Information, providing all consumers, not just Travelers customers, with a toll-free number, to call and comment on insurance issues or ask insurance-related questions.

1973: Two years later St Paul Investment Management Company, an investment management firm, was started, and in 1973 St Paul Life Insurance Company, whose purpose was to market life insurance through independent agents representing St Paul Fire and Marine, was formed. In 1973 Jackson retired as chairman.

1974: He became senior vice president in charge of the property and casualty business in 1974. 1974 John Nuveen & Co. is acquired.

1980: In 1980, Chairman Drake refocused mainly on insurance-related businesses.

1981: Morrison Beach became chairman, and remained CEO until 1981.

1982: Following his retirement, he concentrated on his longtime philanthropic endeavours, including the National Academy Foundation, a network of career academies for high school students, which he had founded in 1982. Budd replaced Beach as chairman in 1982, at a time when the insurance industry was struggling due to record health-care costs and stiff competition between insurers. In 1982 The Travelers expanded its activities in the securities market when it purchased the clearing unit of Moseley, Hallgarten, Estabrook, and Weeden.

1984: Under a new president, Robert J. Haugh, these divestitures were completed by 1984, when The St Paul's net loss was $210 million.

1986: Instead he started over, buying the Commercial Credit division of Control Data Corporation in 1986. In 1986 it became a major player in securities with its $157.5 million purchase of Dillon, Reed & Company, one of Wall Street’s oldest investment-banking firms.

1987: In 1987, Travelers suffered a substantial second-quarter loss of $337 million because of doubtful real estate investments it had made in the Southwest.

1988: In 1988, Travelers began cost-cutting measures through staff reductions; 465 employees were dismissed, another 420 left voluntarily. The company acquired the London-based Minet Holdings PLC in 1988, making The St Paul the seventh largest insurance brokerage firm in the world.

1989: In 1989, however, the travelers lost about $18 million on its HMOs, and sold five HMOs for $1 each.

1990: On May 1, 1990, Haugh retired and was replaced by The St Paul's new chairman, president, and CEO, Douglas W. Leatherdale, who continued the company's strategy for an increasing presence in the European market.

1992: The new company, using the name Primerica, acquired Travelers Insurance and repurchased Shearson from American Express during 1992–93. 1992 Record losses from catastrophic storms, particularly Hurricane Andrew, and a goodwill write-down connected with a troubled U.K. subsidiary send The St Paul into a net loss for the year.

1993: In August 1993, the St Paul Personal & Business unit was bolstered through the $420 million purchase of Economy Fire & Casualty from Kemper Corporation. In the 1990s, Travelers went through a series of mergers and acquisitions. It was bought by Primerica in December 1993, but the resulting company retained the Travelers name.

1996: Results for 1996 were not nearly so rosy, as the company suffered its second worst catastrophe losses in history, $207 million, stemming in large part from an East Coast blizzard, flooding in the West and Southwest, and Hurricane Fran. In the 1990s, Travelers went through a series of mergers and acquisitions. It bought Aetna's property and casualty business in 1996.

1997: In October 1997, he gained widespread attention for Travelers Group’s $9 billion purchase of Salomon Inc., parent company of the prestigious Salomon Brothers investment bank. Then in December The St Paul decided to sell its loss-making Minet Group, finally unloading it in May 1997 to the insurance brokerage firm Aon, based in Chicago. 1997: *Launched an insurance policy to protect individuals who use personal computers for online banking.

1998: When the proposed merger was announced in April 1998, the news stunned the financial industry, but the decision was in step with Weill’s reputation as a corporate visionary who was as savvy as he was fearless. In April 1998, the Travelers Group merged with Citicorp to form Citigroup.

1999: Thus, the merger was able to be completed, and in 1999 Weill became cochairman and co-CEO of Citigroup, then the largest financial services company in the world.

2000: By 2000, Weill was the sole chairman and CEO of Citigroup. According to Forbes, it is considered one of the top 2000 largest public companies in the world. Later in 2000 The St Paul elected to sell an unprofitable subsidiary of MMI, Unionamerica Insurance Co., a London-based unit focusing on medical-liability reinsurance.

2001: The St Paul's losses stemming from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 total $941 million. 2001 and Beyond: The Fishman/Travelers Era

2002: On the downside, The St Paul reached a settlement in a legacy asbestos case inherited through the takeover of USF&G. In mid-2002 the company settled a case involving Western Asbestos, agreeing to a $987 million payment, which resulted in a net charge of $380 million for 2002. However, the synergies between the banking and insurance arms of the company did not work as well as planned, so Citigroup spun off Travelers Property and Casualty into a subsidiary company in 2002, although it kept the red umbrella logo.

2003: In 2003, Travelers bought renewal rights for Royal & SunAlliance Personal Insurance and Commercial businesses.

2004: In 2004, the St Paul and Travelers Companies merged and renamed itself St Paul Travelers, with the headquarters set in St Paul, Minnesota.

2005: In late 2005, Fishman succeeded Lipp as chairman. 2005 Nuveen is divested.

2006: In March 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that St Paul Travelers was in the early stages of discussing a takeover of Zurich Financial Services, one of Europe's largest insurers and a firm that was also a major United States property and casualty insurer. The year 2006 started out inauspiciously, as a United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruling exposed the company to potential additional asbestos liabilities of more than $1 billion in a case involving ACandS Inc., a former distributor and installer of asbestos products.

2007: In 2007, the company changed its corporate name to The Travelers Companies and repurchased the rights to the famous red umbrella logo from Citigroup.

2009: On June 8, 2009, Travelers replaced its former parent Citigroup on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In 2009 Weill and his wife were awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, named for Andrew Carnegie, the millionaire industrialist and philanthropist. 2009: Added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, making Travelers the only property casualty insurance company and one of only a few financial services companies in the Dow.

2010: In November 2010, Travelers entered into a joint venture agreement under which the company would invest in J. Malucelli Participações em Seguros e Resseguros S.A., the market leader in the surety insurance business in Brazil.

2011: The transaction closed in June 2011 with Travelers acquiring a 43.4 percent interest.

2012: At the time, Travelers had the option to increase its investment to retain a 49.5 percent interest, which the company later did in 2012. J. Malucelli commenced writing property casualty business in 2012.

2013: In June 2013, Travelers announced the acquisition of Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company from E-L Financial Corporation Limited (TSX: ELF). The transaction later closed in November 2013.

2015: On August 4, 2015, the company announced that Alan Schnitzer would succeed Jay Fishman as Chief Executive Officer effective December 1, 2015. In October 2015, Travelers acquired a majority interest in the property casualty business of its J. Malucelli joint venture in Brazil.

2016: 2016: *Created the Early Severity Predictor, the first predictive model to help injured employees avoid chronic pain and opioid use.

2017: In March 2017, Travelers agreed to acquire UK-based Simply Business from Aquiline Capital Partners for approximately $490 million. 2017: *Introduced ZoneCheckSM, a first-of-its-kind online tool to help customers identify areas surrounding a job site that could be affected by vibrations from heavy equipment.

2018: On August 15, 2018, Travelers acquired the majority stake of Zensurance, a digital business insurance brokerage in Canada. 2018: Offered a new stand-alone cyber insurance product for organizations of all sizes in the United Kingdom and Ireland to provide liability and first-party cover for losses from cyber attacks. 2018: Introduced MyTravelers® for Injured Employees, a web-based and mobile-friendly self-service tool for workers compensation claims. 2018: *Partnered with Amazon to launch digital storefront. In 2018, Travelers ranked 106 on the Fortune 500 list of largest United States companies.

2019: Established a new comprehensive Life Sciences practice, offering insurance and risk management solutions across the fields of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and digital health. 2019: Partnered with Groundspeed Analytics, Inc. to use artificial intelligence to simplify the new business and policy renewal process. 2019: Offered customers the option to receive digital claim payments through PayPal®. 2019: Implemented new 3-D technology from HOVER to assist in assessing property damage after a catastrophe. The Tower celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2019 – learn more here. 2019: Announced The Travelers Paying It Forward Savings Program, helping employees save for retirement while tackling student debt. 2019: Introduced Risk Toolworks™, a mobile app for business customers, allowing them to access tools, guides and resources to manage risk.

2022: "The Travelers Corporation ." International Directory of Company Histories. . Retrieved June 22, 2022 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/travelers-corporation

According to The Travelers Companies, the company mission is:"to raise capital and the availability and cost of reinsurance."

As stated in company website, The Travelers Companies vision is:" committed to helping to take care of customers,communities and each other."