The Travelers Companies, Inc

Type: Public
Founded: Incorporated as St. Paul Fire & Marine in 1853. Merger of The St. Paul Companies and Travelers Property Casualty Corp. in 2004
Headquarters: St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Key people: Jay Fishman, Chairman & CEO
Industry: Insurance, property & casualty insurance, risk management
Products: Insurance policies are contracted and sold primarily through independent agents or an insurance broker.
Website: www.travelers.com

General Information

The Travelers Companies (NYSE: TRV) is the second largest underwriter of commercial property casualty and personal insurance in the United States. The company is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota and has major operations in Hartford, Connecticut.

The company has field offices in every U.S. state, plus operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In 2005, the company reported revenues of US$24.4 billion and total assets of US$113.2 billion.

Travelers, through its subsidiaries and approximately 14,000 independent agents and brokers, provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals. The company offers insurance through three segments:

Personal Insurance, which includes home, auto and other insurance products for individuals

Business Insurance, which includes a broad array of property and casualty insurance and insurance-related services in the United States

Financial, Professional & International Insurance, which includes surety, crime, and financial liability businesses which primarily use credit-based underwriting processes, as well as property and casualty products that are predominantly marketed on an international basis

Advertising

In 2006, the company introduced a new brand advertising campaign, including four television commercials: Bridge, Boxer, Snowball and Shark. The commercials tell the story ever-changing risks and the importnce of keeping your insurnace 'in-synch.' In 2007, the company added two additional commercials to the campaign, Risk and Luck, and Snowball was nominated for an Emmy.

Snowball featured a man, walking down a steep San Francisco sidewalk, who trips and knocks over a table of items at a garage sale. The man and the items roll down the street, forming a ball which gathers garbage cans, pedestrians, construction materials, motorcycles, light poles, and other items, in a manner very reminiscent of the familiar cartoon 'snowball' effect or the cult video game Katamari Damacy. The creators of the ad say it is simply based on the snowball effect, they've never heard of the game, and that the resulting similarity was a surprise to them.

Also in 2007, the company sponsored the Travelers Championship golf tournament on the PGA TOUR.