The Travelers Companies, Inc.
Founders
Eliphalet Terry, Henry R. Fitch · Founded 1853 · HQ today: New York, New York
Travelers was founded by Eliphalet Terry, Henry R. Fitch in 1853 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is now led by Alan D. Schnitzer.
Travelers' modern company combines two 19th-century insurers. The St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company was formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1853, which is why Travelers dates its roots to that year. The Travelers Insurance Company was organized in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1864 by James G. Batterson and a group of local investors to sell accident insurance to people travelling by rail and steamboat. Over the next century Travelers expanded into life, liability and auto coverage. In the 1990s it became part of Sanford Weill's Travelers Group, which merged with Citicorp in 1998 to form Citigroup. Citigroup spun off Travelers Property Casualty in 2002, and in 2004 it merged with The St. Paul Companies to form St. Paul Travelers. The company took back the red umbrella logo from Citigroup in 2007 and renamed itself The Travelers Companies, Inc.
Hartford merchant and insurance executive; limited verified biographical detail is publicly available.
Eliphalet Terry was a Hartford businessman and insurance executive whom the company lists among its founders. He is associated with Hartford's mid-19th-century insurance community that helped launch Travelers. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
American businessman.
Henry R. Fitch (often credited alongside James G. Batterson) helped found the original Travelers Insurance Company in 1864 in Hartford, Connecticut. They introduced the absolute first travel insurance policies to the United States, specifically designed to protect passengers against the massive, terrifyingly frequent train crashes of the early railroad era. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Daniel S. Frey
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
As CFO, he provides the absolutely critical financial discipline required to navigate the highly volatile property and casualty insurance market.
Alan D. Schnitzer
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Schnitzer joined Travelers in 2007 as general counsel, later ran Business and International Insurance, became CEO in December 2015 and chairman in 2017. Under his leadership Travelers invested heavily in data and technology, bought Corvus in 2024, sold most of its Canadian operations in 2026, and reported record 2025 premiums and net income.
Jay Fishman
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Serving as CEO until his tragic death from ALS in 2015, he is universally recognized as the absolute architect of the modern Travelers Companies, deeply cementing its status as a Dow Jones Industrial Average component.
Robert I. Lipp
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Travelers Property Casualty
He agreed the 2004 merger with St. Paul Companies and became chairman of the combined company. Jay Fishman became chief executive.
James G. Batterson (1823–1901), a Hartford quarry owner, stone importer, classical scholar, and civic leader who founded The Travelers Insurance Company in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1864.
Captain Alexander Wilkin, along with prominent frontier civic leaders and merchants in the Minnesota Territory, founded Saint Paul Fire and Marine on March 5, 1853, to protect riverboat cargo and local businesses.
While traveling by rail from Leamington to London in 1859, Batterson bought an accident insurance ticket from the Railway Passengers Assurance Company, inspiring him to introduce travel accident coverage to the United States.
Batterson owned a major granite and marble quarry firm that supplied stone for the US Capitol building, the Library of Congress, the Connecticut State Capitol, and the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia.
On March 1, 1864, Batterson verbally insured local Hartford banker James E. Bolter for $5,000 against accident while walking from his home to the local post office, collecting a two-cent premium.
Rodney Dennis served as Travelers' first corporate secretary, managing administrative records, policy ledger books, and branch office agency networks alongside Batterson for over three decades.
Alexander Wilkin served as the first president of Saint Paul Fire and Marine, establishing its charter before serving as a Union Army colonel during the Civil War, where he was killed in action in 1864.
The Civil War created severe travel hazards across American railroads and waterways, driving immense public demand for personal accident insurance and resulting in over 27,000 policies sold in Travelers' first two years.
Eliphalet Terry was the legendary president of Hartford Fire Insurance Company whose personal pledge to pay claims after the 1835 Great New York Fire established Hartford's reputation for honoring claims, setting the ethical standard Batterson upheld.
Travelers opened its first modest two-room office on Main Street in Hartford, Connecticut, furnished with a simple safe, two desks, and Batterson's personal reference library.
The founders insisted on maintaining conservative underwriting reserves, avoiding speculative real estate lending, and paying claims promptly and publicly to establish trust.
Their heritage is commemorated in corporate archives and museum exhibits in Hartford and Saint Paul, guiding the company's cultural principles of community stewardship, integrity, and risk discipline.
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