CEO Message

At Travelers, we manage risk for our customers, and for more than 165 years, they’ve trusted us to be there when it matters most. In 2023, we delivered very strong top- and bottom-line results notwithstanding elevated industrywide catastrophe losses and a personal lines operating environment that, while improving, was difficult during the year. Our very strong financial performance this year reflects both our relentless execution – day in and day out – across our businesses, and the impact of the significant investments and strategic initiatives we have undertaken in recent years.

Our continued success requires that we do three things successfully: perform, transform and make good on the Travelers Promise.

At Travelers, perform is the flywheel that sets everything we do in motion. Perform for us means executing on our long-term financial strategy to generate industry-leading returns on equity over time. Our return on equity has significantly outperformed the average return on equity for the industry in each of the past 10 years, reflecting the value of our competitive advantages and the discipline with which we run our business. 

Our formidable competitive advantages are the foundation of our success. However, we understand that the competitive advantages that have fueled our achievements over the past decade will not necessarily be the same as those we will need to continue to lead for the next decade. Consequently, transform means positioning the company to continue to perform by ensuring that our competitive advantages remain relevant and differentiating into the future. To that end, we have embraced an ambitious innovation agenda guided by our vision to be the undeniable choice for the customer and an indispensable partner for our agents and brokers.

Perform is how we deliver industry-leading results today, and transform is the way we prepare to do so tomorrow. Each depends on the other, and both depend on one thing: the Travelers Promise.

The Travelers Promise is a commitment to take care of our customers, our communities and each other. This includes being there to help our customers recover after the storm and also giving them the security they need to invest in their families and businesses. It also includes caring for the communities in which we live and work by supporting academic and career success, and promoting the development of thriving neighborhoods and enriched communities. Finally, it is about making Travelers a great place to work for our employees – the best talent in the industry – and a great partner for our agents and brokers. In the end, the Travelers Promise is about taking care of the people we are privileged to serve.

Put another way, for Travelers, sustainability comes down to this: Only by successfully delivering on our perform and transform agenda will we earn the resources we need to keep the Travelers Promise. And only by faithfully keeping the Travelers Promise will we earn the support of key stakeholders essential to our perform and transform success. That is how we are going to deliver results next quarter and succeed for the next quarter century.

With that in mind, I invite you to read on about the ways we are driving sustainability at Travelers.