Travelers business insurance

Overview

Travelers is the biggest commercial lines writer in the country. The group ranked No. 1 among U.S. business insurers by 2025 commercial lines direct premiums written, with $27.13 billion, based on NAIC market share data, about 5.6% of the national commercial market. It led the country in package policies (the NAIC's "commercial multiple peril" line, which includes the business owner's policy), surety and fidelity bonds. It ranked second in general liability and umbrella (NAIC "other liability"), commercial auto, workers' compensation, and burglary and theft; third in fire and equipment breakdown; fourth in allied property lines and ocean marine; and it also sits in the top 10 for farmowners, inland marine, products liability and excess workers' comp.

The parent, The Travelers Companies, Inc., is a public company (NYSE: TRV) and the only property-casualty insurer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Its principal executive office is in New York, but most of the operation runs out of Hartford, Connecticut, and St. Paul, Minnesota. Alan Schnitzer is chairman and CEO. The NAIC group files under dozens of legal entities: The Travelers Indemnity Company leads the pooled companies, and the group also includes the St. Paul Fire and Marine companies, Charter Oak Fire, Phoenix Insurance, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America (the bond writer), Northland Insurance (trucking), Northfield Insurance, and two surplus lines companies, Travelers Excess and Surplus Lines and St. Paul Surplus Lines.

Travelers sells business insurance only through independent agents and brokers, about 15,000 of them across the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Ireland according to its website. It also owns Simply Business, an online agency that quotes small businesses with a panel of carriers.

History

Travelers has two roots. St. Paul Fire and Marine was organized in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1853 and paid its first claim in 1855. The Travelers Insurance Company was founded in Hartford on April 1, 1864, and introduced accident insurance in the United States. Travelers moved into commercial lines early: it offered employers liability coverage, the forerunner of workers' compensation, in 1889, an automobile policy in 1897, a corps of safety engineers in 1904 and aircraft liability insurance in 1919.

The modern company was assembled in the last three decades. Travelers absorbed Aetna's property-casualty operations in 1996 and ended the decade inside Citigroup. In December 2001 Citigroup announced it would sell up to 20% of Travelers Property Casualty Corp. in an IPO, which priced in March 2002, and spin off the rest to its shareholders. On April 1, 2004, The St. Paul Companies merged with Travelers Property Casualty to form The St. Paul Travelers Companies, which renamed itself The Travelers Companies, Inc. in February 2007. It joined the Dow in 2009.

Acquisitions since then have been targeted. Travelers closed its roughly $1.1 billion purchase of The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company in November 2013 and its purchase of the U.K. online broker Simply Business (about $490 million) in August 2017. The Canadian expansion was largely reversed on January 2, 2026, when Travelers completed the sale of its Canadian personal lines and most of its Canadian commercial business to Definity Financial for about $2.4 billion. Travelers kept its Canadian surety business.

Business insurance products

Travelers reports business insurance through two segments. Business Insurance wrote $22.68 billion of net written premiums in 2025 (all figures from the company's January 2026 earnings release):

• Select Accounts ($3.83 billion): the small commercial unit. Package policies including the BOP, workers' comp, commercial auto, general liability and property, with cyber, employment practices and professional liability available alongside.
• Middle Market ($12.54 billion): the core of the company. Package, casualty, auto, comp and umbrella for mid-sized firms, organized around industry practices such as construction, manufacturing, technology, energy and renewables, and real estate.
• National Accounts ($1.26 billion): workers' comp, auto and general liability for large companies, generally on loss-sensitive terms such as a large deductible program, sold bundled or with claims and services unbundled. This unit also services about 38% of the national workers' comp assigned risk market, by Travelers' own count.
• National Property and Other ($3.11 billion): large and mid-sized commercial property, Northland trucking, Agribusiness for farms and ranches, admitted National Programs for affinity groups, and Northfield, which writes small, hard-to-place property and liability accounts on an excess and surplus lines basis.
• International ($1.93 billion): the U.K., Ireland and Lloyd's.

Bond & Specialty Insurance wrote another $4.26 billion: contract and commercial surety, fidelity and crime, and management and professional liability (D&O, EPL, fiduciary, cyber, E&O). For contractors who need bid, performance and payment bonds, Travelers is the country's largest surety writer, and many agents place the bond and the casualty program together. See surety bonds explained: how they differ from insurance for how bonding capacity works.

Who it insures

Travelers writes nearly every class of commercial business somewhere in its structure, from a single-location retailer in Select to Fortune 500 companies in National Accounts. Its business pages name auto and truck dealers, construction, education, energy and renewables, financial institutions, food services, healthcare, hospitality and recreation, manufacturing, real estate, technology and transportation. Its small business page highlights architects and engineers, auto repair, financial services, food and beverage, healthcare practices, personal care, pet care, professional services, retail and technology services.

Small accounts that fall outside the standard appetite can go to Northfield on a surplus lines basis, so the agent may come back with a Travelers quote on non-admitted paper. Trucking runs through Northland, which has its own claim line, and farm and ranch accounts through Agribusiness. The Canadian sale matters for U.S. companies with Canadian locations: since January 2026, Travelers can no longer write their Canadian property and casualty on its own paper except surety.

How to buy

You buy Travelers through an agent. The small business page on travelers.com offers a "Find an agent" tool and no online quote, and the business section of the contact page sends policy questions to your agent too. National Accounts business comes through national and regional brokers. Before the submission goes in, ask your agent whether the agency has a direct Travelers appointment or reaches it through a cluster or wholesaler, because that affects who services the account.

For very small businesses, the Travelers-owned agency Simply Business sells online and by phone, quoting Travelers alongside other insurers; the policy you end up with may not be a Travelers policy.

Once insured, MyTravelers for Business lets you pay bills, pull policy documents, print auto ID cards and issue a certificate of insurance in real time. Adding a mortgagee or loss payee to a certificate yourself is limited to Select Accounts and certain program package customers.

Claims

Business claims can be reported 24 hours a day at 800-238-6225 or online through the business claim page; status questions go to claim professionals Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time. National Accounts (800-832-7839), construction (877-828-4132) and Northland trucking (800-328-5972) have their own reporting lines. Loss runs are requested by email from the claim resources page.

For workers' comp, the TravCARE Nurse Line connects an injured employee with a nurse at the first report through the same 800-238-6225 number, and the comp program includes ConciergeCLAIM nurse clinics and a Travelers Preferred provider network. Injured employees get their own portal, MyTravelers for Injured Employees. Travelers has organized safety engineers since 1904; today policyholders reach risk control through their account team and a registered customer portal.

Financial strength and ratings

AM Best affirmed the A++ (Superior) financial strength rating, its highest, of Travelers' main insurance subsidiaries and of Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America in August 2025, with a stable outlook, citing balance sheet strength it assesses as "strongest." Travelers' ratings page, viewed October 2026, lists the pooled companies at AA from S&P, Aa2 from Moody's and AA from Fitch. Its small Florida personal lines company, First Floridian, is rated A- by AM Best.

In 2025, Travelers reported total revenues of $48.8 billion, net income of $6.29 billion and a consolidated combined ratio of 89.9%; the Business Insurance segment ran at 91.7%. The year included a $277 million addition to asbestos reserves in run-off operations. In J.D. Power's 2025 U.S. Small Commercial Insurance Study, Travelers ranked No. 5, up from No. 13 the year before after a 30-point score gain. It was not among the top five named in the 2026 study.

Strengths and weaknesses

Travelers is the default choice for many agents because it can write almost any commercial account at almost any size on top-rated paper, and it bonds contractors as well as insuring them. The trade-off is that you deal with it only through an intermediary, and service on a small account depends heavily on the agency that holds it.

• Strengths: A++ (Superior) from AM Best (affirmed August 2025) and AA from S&P; No. 1 nationally in package policies, surety and fidelity, and No. 2 in general liability, commercial auto and workers' comp; separate claim lines for National Accounts, construction and trucking, plus nurse triage on comp claims; real-time certificates and self-service for insureds.
• Weaknesses: No online quoting on travelers.com, and business policy service questions go to your agent rather than a direct service line; small commercial customer satisfaction has been mid-pack, No. 5 in J.D. Power's 2025 study after No. 13 in 2024; since the January 2026 Definity sale, it no longer writes Canadian commercial property and casualty other than surety; asbestos run-off continues to need reserve additions ($277 million in 2025).

How to contact Travelers