Alan Schnitzer

Overview

Alan D. Schnitzer
Born	1965 (age 60–61)
Education	Bachelor of Science in finance and accounting; Juris Doctor
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School); Columbia University
Occupation(s)	Business executive, attorney
Employer(s)	The Travelers Companies, Inc.
Known for	Leading The Travelers Companies as chairman and CEO
Title	Chairman and chief executive officer
Term	2015–present (chief executive officer); 2017–present (chairman)
Predecessor	Jay Fishman
Board member of	The Travelers Companies, Inc.; University of Pennsylvania; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; New York City Ballet
Spouse	Anne Berman (m. 1994)
Children	2
Awards	Insurance Leader of the Year (2023); Civic Leadership Award, Metropolitan Museum of Art (2015)

🧑‍💼 Alan D. Schnitzer (born 1965) is a business executive and attorney who serves as chairman and chief executive officer of The Travelers Companies, Inc., a large United States-based property and casualty insurance group. He joined Travelers in 2007 after a career as a corporate lawyer and was appointed chief executive officer on 1 December 2015 and chairman of the board in August 2017, leading the company through an era of heightened catastrophe activity, technological change and market volatility while it remained the only property-casualty insurer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

📊 Leadership focus and public profile. Sources describe Schnitzer’s leadership at Travelers as emphasising underwriting discipline, careful capital management and long-term planning rather than transformational mergers. He has advocated for data-driven decision-making and incremental innovation, balancing investments in technology and analytics with a conservative risk appetite, and he has become a visible voice in industry discussions through interviews, trade-association roles and recognition from business and academic organisations.

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Early life and education

🎓 Early education and dual training. Schnitzer was born in 1965 and developed an early interest in both business and law. He studied at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and accounting in 1988 and graduating magna cum laude, before completing a Juris Doctor at Columbia Law School in 1991, where he was recognised as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for high academic achievement.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family connections and early influences. While at Penn, Schnitzer met fellow student Anne Berman, whom he would later marry. Her stepfather, Robert I. Lipp, was a senior banking and insurance executive who served as chief executive officer of Travelers in the early 2000s, a connection that brought Schnitzer into closer contact with the insurance group that would later become his professional base.

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Career

⚖️ Corporate law career. After graduating from Columbia, Schnitzer joined the New York law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where he specialised in corporate and financial-services work. He rose to become a partner and a trusted adviser to major clients, including Travelers, building a reputation for handling complex transactions and regulatory matters in the insurance and banking sectors.

🤝 Adviser on major mergers. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Schnitzer played a central role as outside counsel on several landmark deals involving Travelers. He advised on the 1998 merger between Travelers and Citicorp, a transaction valued at about US$70 billion that created Citigroup, and on the 2004 merger of Travelers with The St. Paul Companies, which formed the modern Travelers Companies. These assignments deepened his relationship with Travelers’ leadership and demonstrated his ability to navigate large, complex financial deals.

🏢 Move into Travelers management. In April 2007, Schnitzer left private practice to join Travelers as vice chairman and chief legal officer, joining the company’s executive management committee. In that position he oversaw legal affairs, public policy and government relations, shifting from the role of outside counsel to an internal strategist who helped shape the company’s approach to capital, regulation and risk.

🌐 Business and international leadership roles. During the early 2010s, Schnitzer moved from legal responsibilities into line management. Travelers appointed him chief executive officer of its Financial, Professional & International Insurance segment and later of Business & International Insurance, the company’s largest business unit, giving him responsibility for core commercial operations and international activities. Under his leadership Travelers expanded in markets such as Canada and Latin America, including the acquisition of Dominion of Canada General Insurance and a majority stake in Colombian insurer Cardinal Seguros.

🪙 Ascension to chief executive officer. Travelers’ long-time chief executive, Jay Fishman, announced in 2015 that he would step down because of illness, and the board selected Schnitzer as his successor. Schnitzer became chief executive officer of The Travelers Companies on 1 December 2015, at the age of 49, and was elected chairman of the board in August 2017, consolidating his leadership of the group.

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Leadership of Travelers

🌩️ Catastrophe risk and underwriting discipline. As chief executive, Schnitzer has placed particular emphasis on underwriting discipline and balance-sheet strength at a time when low interest rates and intense competition have pressured margins in the property-casualty sector. Anticipating the rising frequency and severity of natural catastrophes, he reorganised Travelers’ catastrophe underwriting by specific peril, created specialist teams focused on risks such as hurricanes and wildfires, and expanded the use of climatologists, engineers and data scientists to refine pricing. Industry coverage has linked this strategy to catastrophe losses that have been lower than the company’s market share would suggest, even as Travelers has continued to write business in exposed regions.

🧭 Long-term orientation and crisis response. Schnitzer has repeatedly argued that an insurance company cannot reposition itself quickly in response to every shift in tariffs, inflation or geopolitics, and instead must prepare for a wide range of scenarios over a long horizon. During the COVID-19 pandemic he and Travelers’ finance team spent the early weeks stress-testing the business, concluded that the company could withstand severe economic disruption, and advanced about US$100 million of commissions to brokers while providing premium credits and other relief to customers, measures intended to support distribution partners and policyholders without compromising the balance sheet.

💻 Digital transformation and targeted acquisitions. Under Schnitzer’s leadership Travelers has pursued incremental acquisitions and technology investments rather than large mergers. In 2017 the company acquired UK-based digital platform Simply Business for roughly US$490 million, gaining a foothold in small-business insurance distribution in the United Kingdom and access to digital expertise. Travelers has also expanded tools such as virtual claim inspections and online customer portals, developments that became particularly important when the pandemic limited in-person interactions.

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Financial performance and compensation

📈 Shareholder returns and financial results. Since Schnitzer became chief executive in 2015, Travelers has maintained its reputation as a blue-chip property-casualty insurer. Over the five years to 2024, sources report that the group generated a total shareholder return of roughly 97 per cent while continuing to post return-on-equity metrics above many industry peers and growing premiums and earnings. By late 2025 its share price was trading near historic highs, and the company remained the only property-casualty insurer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

💵 Executive compensation structure. As head of a large financial-services group, Schnitzer receives a substantial pay package dominated by performance-based incentives. For the 2024 financial year his total compensation was reported at about US$22.6 million, including a base salary of around US$1.45 million, an annual bonus of roughly US$7 million and long-term stock and option awards worth more than US$14 million; approximately 94 per cent of his pay is structured as at-risk incentive compensation linked to metrics such as core return on equity and total shareholder return.

💰 Wealth and share ownership. Schnitzer’s compensation and long tenure at Travelers have resulted in significant equity ownership. As of 2025 he was estimated to hold around 270,000 shares of Travelers stock, a stake valued at roughly US$80 million at prevailing market prices, with additional unvested equity and options that could increase that figure. External analyses suggest that his total net worth lies in the low- to mid-nine-figure range, with his holdings in Travelers aligning his personal financial interests closely with those of shareholders.

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Other roles and affiliations

🏛️ Board, academic and industry roles. Beyond his executive responsibilities at Travelers, Schnitzer serves on or has served on a range of boards and industry bodies. He has been a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and sits on the boards of organisations such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the New York City Ballet, and he has chaired the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, a major United States property-casualty trade association. He is also a member of business-policy groups including the Business Roundtable, The Business Council and the Council on Foreign Relations.

🤝 Civic and community engagement. Schnitzer participates in initiatives that link business to local communities and employment. Travelers has long been title sponsor of the Travelers Championship, a PGA Tour golf tournament in Connecticut that raises funds for regional charities, and under his leadership the sponsorship has been extended through 2030. In 2023 he joined the New York Jobs CEO Council, a coalition of chief executives focused on expanding job opportunities for under-served communities in the New York area.

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Personal life and interests

🏡 Family life. Schnitzer married Anne Berman in 1994 after the couple met as undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania. Anne Berman Schnitzer later earned both a law degree and an MBA from Columbia University and, like her husband, has worked as an attorney; her stepfather Robert I. Lipp served as chief executive of Travelers in the early 2000s and was an early mentor and sponsor of Schnitzer’s relationship with the company. The couple have two children and have generally kept their family life private, living primarily on the United States East Coast near Travelers’ New York and Hartford operations.

🎭 Cultural and philanthropic interests. Schnitzer is active in arts and cultural philanthropy, reflecting his board roles with the New York City Ballet and major museums. He has been recognised by organisations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Business Committee, which presented him with a civic leadership award in 2015, and he is frequently associated with charitable initiatives connected to Travelers’ sponsorships and community programmes.

🧠 Management style. Accounts from colleagues and interviews portray Schnitzer’s leadership style as analytical, collaborative and understated. A lawyer by training, he is described as detail-oriented and methodical in decision-making yet willing to delegate and listen, encouraging debate before committing to a course of action. He has emphasised the importance of informal interactions and mentorship in office settings, and frequently links Travelers’ strategy back to longstanding principles such as “underwriting excellence” and prudent risk-taking.

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Controversies and challenges

🌍 Climate policy and fossil-fuel exposure. Schnitzer’s tenure at Travelers has coincided with growing scrutiny of insurers’ roles in climate change. Under his leadership the company has pledged to achieve carbon-neutral operations by 2030 and has highlighted investments in renewable energy and resilience projects. Climate-advocacy groups, however, have criticised Travelers for remaining a significant insurer of oil and gas projects and a large investor in fossil-fuel-related assets, arguing that its underwriting activities are inconsistent with its public sustainability statements. Campaigns led by coalitions such as Insure Our Future have urged Travelers and Schnitzer to adopt stricter exclusions on fossil-fuel business, and United States lawmakers have written to major insurers to question their climate policies.

📋 Diversity, governance and executive pay. Schnitzer has also faced questions on social and governance issues typically directed at large publicly traded companies. Following nationwide protests over racial justice in 2020, he publicly committed Travelers to reassessing its diversity and inclusion efforts and to setting new internal goals for recruiting and promoting under-represented groups. Proxy-advisory firms and some shareholders have at times highlighted the size of his pay package relative to certain peers, prompting more detailed disclosures linking his long-term incentives to performance metrics and the introduction of features such as a relative total shareholder return modifier on performance stock units.

🧱 Operational and market pressures. As leader of a major insurer, Schnitzer has overseen Travelers’ response to catastrophic hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting interest-rate cycles. The company has faced the litigation and customer disputes typical for large insurers following major loss events, but published sources do not identify any major scandals or regulatory sanctions personally associated with Schnitzer. Commentators have noted that Travelers maintains a relatively conservative investment portfolio and has avoided significant accounting controversies over the period of his leadership.

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Awards and recognition

🏆 Industry and civic honours. Schnitzer’s contributions to insurance and civic life have been recognised by academic and cultural institutions. In 2015 he received a civic leadership award from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Business Committee, and in January 2023 St. John’s University’s Peter J. Tobin College of Business named him its Insurance Leader of the Year, citing his stewardship of Travelers and his role in guiding the industry through the COVID-19 period.

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Legacy

📚 Assessment and legacy. Commentaries on Schnitzer’s career emphasise the continuity between his background in law and finance and his approach to leading Travelers. His tenure has combined a conservative stance on underwriting and capital with support for data-driven innovation and selective acquisitions, while his external roles link the company to debates on climate risk, diversity and the role of large employers in communities. Observers often present his leadership as that of a steady, analytically minded executive whose influence extends beyond Travelers into broader discussions about the evolution of property-casualty insurance.

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