TRV, Travelers Companies
Travelers Companies is a holding company principally engaged, through its subsidiaries, in providing a wide range of commercial and personal property and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations and individuals.
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- An insurance business, read on its underwriting result, the combined ratio, and the float it invests, rather than an earnings multiple.
- What moves the needle
- Underwriting discipline and the float. What decides it: whether the combined ratio stays below 100% so the policies make money on their own, how large the float is against equity, and what that float earns once it is invested.
- Is it a good business?
- It underwrites at a profit, about a 93% combined ratio (it keeps roughly 7% of premiums before investing the float). Book value per share, the measure Berkshire is judged on, has compounded about 7% a year across the record. The float runs about 2.0× equity, the leverage that magnifies both the underwriting and the investing. Whether the discipline holds through a soft market, and how the float is invested, are what the 10-K decides.
Every line here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $27.6B | $28.9B | $30.3B | $31.6B | $32.0B | $34.8B | $36.9B | $41.4B | $46.4B | $48.8B | $48.9B |
| Premiums earnedPremiums | $24.5B | $25.7B | $27.1B | $28.3B | $29.0B | $30.9B | $33.8B | $37.8B | $41.9B | $43.9B | $43.8B |
| Net incomeNet inc. | $3.0B | $2.1B | $2.5B | $2.6B | $2.7B | $3.7B | $2.8B | $3.0B | $5.0B | $6.3B | $7.6B |
| Combined ratioCombined | ≈ 96% | ≈ 102% | ≈ 101% | ≈ 101% | ≈ 99% | ≈ 98% | ≈ 99% | ≈ 101% | ≈ 96% | ≈ 93% | ≈ 90% |
| Loss ratioLoss | 61% | 68% | 68% | 68% | 66% | 66% | 68% | 69% | 65% | 62% | 58% |
| Return on equityROE | 13% | 9% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 13% | 13% | 12% | 18% | 19% | 24% |
| Investment incomeInv. inc. | $2.3B | $2.4B | $2.5B | $2.5B | $2.2B | $3.0B | $2.6B | $2.9B | $3.6B | $4.0B | $4.0B |
| Float (reserves)Float | $47.9B | $49.6B | $50.7B | $51.8B | $54.5B | $56.9B | $58.6B | $61.6B | $64.1B | $65.7B | $66.9B |
| Book value / shareBVPS | $79.80 | $85.18 | $84.86 | $98.91 | $114.69 | $115.18 | $89.95 | $107.33 | $120.57 | $144.53 | $146.46 |
| Dividends / shareDiv/sh | $2.60 | $2.82 | $3.02 | $3.22 | $3.38 | $3.46 | $3.65 | $3.91 | $4.12 | $4.30 | — |
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Combined ratio ≈ 93%Underwriting profitTotal benefits, losses and expenses $41.0B ÷ premiums earned $43.9B
The heart of an insurer: claims and costs as a share of premiums. Below 100% means it is paid to hold the float, the gold standard; above 100% means it loses money on the policies and must make it back on investments. Approximate here, taken from the filer's total benefits, losses and expenses over premiums, so it can sit a point or two off the company's headline figure; a number held below 100% across cycles is the mark of a disciplined underwriter, the rarest thing in the business.
- Return on equity 19%StrongNet income $6.3B ÷ equity $32.9B
What it earns on shareholders' capital, the underwriting result plus what the float earns invested. Durably above the ~10% cost of equity is what compounds book value.
The float
- Float (reserves) $65.7B2.0× equityLoss and claim reserves $65.7B, 2.0× equity
Money collected as premiums and held against future claims, invested in the meantime. Buffett's insight was that good underwriting makes this float cost less than nothing, a pool of other people's money the owners earn on. The larger it is against equity, the more that leverage works, for better or worse.
- Investment income $4.0B6.0% on the floatNet investment income $4.0B, 6.0% on the float
What the float and capital earned this year. This is the second engine: an insurer that breaks even on underwriting still wins if the float is large and invested well.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookAn insurer is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Travelers Companies’s record justifies. Nothing is stored; the number stays in your browser.
Enter a price above to run it.
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). An insurer earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; every point of durable excess return above that is worth paying up for. Raise the cost of equity and the justified multiple falls: that is interest-rate gravity on an insurer.
Tangible book $27.6B on 218M shares, a 14% normalized return on it. This is a lens, not a target. It assumes the insurer keeps earning that return; an underwriting cycle, a reserve shortfall or a bad year on the float changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Pricing power & competitionRisk Factors
Whether the company sets its price or takes it. Durable pricing power is the surest mark of a moat; price competition is the surest mark there isn't one.
“It could also lead to commoditization of products, which could increase the focus on price and cost management and decrease our ability to differentiate our products in the marketplace with customers based on other factors.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Concentrated dependenceRisk Factors
What the whole business leans on, a product, a platform, a partner. Concentration cuts both ways, and the filing is where management has to admit it.
“Our profitability substantially depends on the extent to which our actual claims experience is consistent with the assumptions we use in pricing our policies.”
From the recordRevenue (TTM)$48.9B - Debt terms & refinancingBusiness
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“With regard to Long Point Re IV, the credit risk is mitigated by a reinsurance trust account that has been funded by Long Point Re IV with money market funds that invest solely in direct government obligations and obligations backed by the U.S. government with maturities of no more than 13 months.”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)$445M modest net debt · interest covered 8.6× - Litigation & contingenciesMD&A
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“For example, from time to time third parties sue our policyholders alleging that they caused or contributed to losses associated with changing climate conditions.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Cyclicality & demandRisk Factors
How the business behaves when the economy turns. A cyclical earns its keep across the whole cycle, not at the peak.
“For example, financial market disruptions and economic downturns in the past have resulted in, among other things, reduced business volume, heightened credit risk, reduced valuations for certain of our investments and heightened vulnerability for smaller vendors with whom we do business.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Regulation & policyMD&A
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“The cost of the treasury stock acquired pursuant to common share repurchases includes the 1% federal excise tax imposed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “Earthquake 2.0% (1-in-50) 4 % 2 % 1.0% (1-in-100) 5 % 2 % 0.4% (1-in-250) 10 % 4 % 0.1% (1-in-1,000) 27 % 7 % ___________________________________________ (1) An event that has, for example, a 2% likelihood of exceedance is sometimes described as a "1-in-50 year event." As noted above, however, the p…”
- “When defense costs are outside of the policy limits, the full amount of the policy limit is available to pay claims and the amounts paid for defense costs have no contractual limit. 102 This line is typically the largest source of reserve estimate uncertainty in the United States (excluding assumed …”
- “The Company's overall view of the current underlying asbestos environment is essentially unchanged from recent periods, and there remains a high degree of uncertainty with respect to future exposure to asbestos claims. 75 The following table displays activity for asbestos losses and loss adjustment …”
- “The combined ratio excluding prior year reserve development and catastrophe losses ("underlying combined ratio") in 2025 was 2.3 points lower than the 2024 ratio on the same basis, primarily reflecting the impacts of (i) the benefit of earned pricing and (ii) lower losses in Personal Insurance.”
- “Item 7—Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Catastrophe Modeling" and "—Changing Climate Conditions." In addition, for newer and rapidly evolving products, such as cyber insurance, limited historical loss experience and the potential for a widespread …”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Insurance
The same industry, side by side on the underwriting lens, compare, don't rank by a single number. ● marks best in the group.
| Company | Revenue | Combined ratio | Loss ratio | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PGRProgressive Corp. | $87.7B | 90% | 66% | 37% |
| ALLAllstate Corp. | $67.7B | 91% | 67% | 34% |
| CBChubb Ltd. | $59.4B | 87% | 50% | 14% |
| TRVTravelers Companies | $48.8B | 93% | 62% | 19% |
| AIGAmerican International Group | $26.8B | 96% | 60% | 8% |