Property and casualty insurer Travelers Cos. closed out 2021 with $3.66 billion in profits, up 36% from the year before, mainly due to higher underwriting gains, strong performance from investments and efforts to limit the impact of catastrophe-related losses, company officials reported Thursday.
Travelers, which has its largest office in Hartford, turned in improvements to both its year-end and fourth-quarter bottom line, with Chairman and CEO Alan Schnitzer telling analysts during a conference call that the company is “firing on all cylinders” despite the economic and social tumult of the last two years.
On a year to year basis, Travelers saw its net written premiums grow from $29.73 billion in 2020 to $31.95 billion in 2021. Revenues increased from $31.98 billion to $34.81 billion over the same interval, partly due to higher business volumes.
For the fourth quarter, earnings rose to $1.33 billion, or $5.37 per diluted share, up from $1.31 billion, or $5.10 per diluted share, in the final quarter of 2020.
Total fourth quarter revenues grew from $8.39 billion to $9.01 billion, powered in part by higher net investment income and strong performance from the company’s business insurance and bond and specialty insurance segments.
Those gains were partially offset by losses from tornados in Kentucky, wildfires in Colorado and powerful windstorms across multiple states.
Schnitzer told analysts Thursday that the company has been upping its investment in digital tools, having increased funding for strategic technology initiatives by 50% over the last five years. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and increasingly sophisticated predictive modeling, Schnitzer said, will help the company forecast and assess high-impact events such as hurricanes and fires with much greater speed and accuracy than has ever been possible, all without the assistance of outside claims adjusters and investigators.
