St. Paul Travelers

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St. Paul Travelers Companies, Inc.

Type	Public (NYSE: STA)
Founded	Incorporated as St. Paul Fire & Marine in 1853. Merger of The St. Paul Companies and Travelers Property Casualty Corp. in 2004
Headquarters	Saint 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.
Revenue	$24.4 billion USD (2005)
Employees	~32,000 (2006)
Website	www.stpaultravelers.com

The St. Paul Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: STA) is the second largest underwriter of commercial property casualty and personal insurance in the United States, doing business primarily under the Travelers brand. It was formed in 2004 through the merger of the Travelers Property Casualty Corporation and the St. Paul Companies.

The company is headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but has major operations in Hartford, Connecticut, the former headquarters of Travelers Property Casualty prior to the merger.

Top: The familiar umbrella logo of the former Travelers. Travelers discontinued use of this logo more than two years before the merger with The St. Paul Companies. Bottom: The logo the The St. Paul used prior to the merger with Travelers.

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

St. Paul 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 incldues 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.

1 History
2 Advertising
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

Throughout its history, the company is noted for having delivered many industry firsts, including the first automobile policy, the first commercial airline policy, and the first policy for space travel.

The St. Paul Companies was founded in 1853 and Travelers Property Casualty Corp. was founded in 1864. In 1998 The St. Paul Companies acquired USF&G known formerly as United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, an insurance company based in Baltimore, Maryland.

[edit] Advertising

In 2006, the company introduced a new brand advertising campaign, including four television commercials.

One commercial 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 oddly-shaped items, in a manner very reminiscent of the cult video game Katamari Damacy.^[1]^[2]

The makers 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.^[3]