History

Seneca Insurance Company, Inc. ("Seneca") is a property and casualty insurance company licensed in 50 states which provides insurance for risks classified as "mainstreet", and specialty lines which include bail bonds, custom property, inland marine, technology errors and omissions and excess and surplus casualty insurance. Mainstreet business is generated from offices in New York, Louisville, Denver, Richmond and Arizona. Custom property business is comprised of property oriented surplus lines risks principally emanating from offices located in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Seneca is rated A (Class Size VIII) by A.M. Best Company. Seneca has a wholly owned non admitted carrier (Seneca Specialty Insurance Company) which is authorized to write excess and surplus business in 48 states. 

The Company's strategy is individual risk underwriting emphasizing those lines of business that reward strong technical skills, require a high level of detailed underwriting, and the use of independent sources of information. This strategy coupled with the Company's strong claims adjustment skills and historical conservative loss reserving has resulted in a very consistent track record with loss ratios significantly lower than those of the industry on both an accident year and calendar year basis for the past decade. 

The current management of the Company was installed in 1989. Since that time, the Company's statutory surplus has increased from $11.8 million at December 31, 1989 to $154.0 million at June 30, 2009. This represents an annual compounded growth rate of 16.0% (adjusted for stockholder dividends). 

The current Seneca management team is led by Douglas M. Libby, President and CEO of Seneca and its parent company, Crum & Forster. Day to day operations are run by Marc T. Wolin, Chief Financial Officer, Keith McCarthy, Vice President Underwriting (Standard Lines), and Ellen O'Connor, Vice President Underwriting (Custom Property and Inland Marine). 

Seneca received a B++ rating in 1992, an A- rating in 1994, and is currently rated A (Class VIII) by A.M. Best. In 1993 an investor group consisting of J.P. Morgan Capital, Century Shares Capital and Third Avenue Value Fund acquired 30% of the Company. In 1996 the Trident Partnership acquired 70% interest in the Company. These investors remained in the Company until 2000 when Seneca was sold to Crum & Forster, a Fairfax Company. Seneca targets smaller average premium size business, and Crum & Forster targets substantially larger average premium business. Although the two companies operate independently, they cross sell between the two agency plants, and share underwriting resources on a limited basis..