FACTORY MUTUAL INSURANCE CO.
Factory Mutual Insurance Co. reached what Jon Hall, executive vp of the Johnston, R.I.-based property insurer, called a “huge milestone” this year—its 175th anniversary.
While that allows the insurer, which does business as FM Global, to recognize its accomplishments, “it challenges us to keep the bar high,” Mr. Hall said.
Keeping the bar high helped FM Global, which stresses the importance of loss control to its policyholders, win recognition as best overall commercial property insurer in Business Insurance‘s 2010 Readers Choice Awards.
As a global property insurer, Mr. Hall said FM Global faced several challenges during the past year including natural catastrophes.
The past year has featured “very high loss activity,” he said. “Nothing super severe, but a lot of activity that creates a lot of moments of truth with your clients, with so many different clients having losses,” he said. “We feel good about that because we continue to stand up” and pay clients and work with them to mitigate losses, said Mr. Hall.
The year also marked completion of expanding the FM Global Research Campus in West Glocester, R.I., said Mr. Hall. The facility, which opened in 2003 to replace an older one, is where FM Global tests building materials and analyzes the effects of hazards ranging from wind to fire to hail to earthquake.
Another milestone this year was the declaration of FM Global’s membership credit for clients renewing their policies.
It is the fifth credit since the company was founded by the merger of Allendale Mutual Insurance Co., Arkwright Mutual Insurance Co. and Protection Mutual Insurance Co. in 1999.
Mr. Hall said the credit—the largest in the company’s history and the first to be declared on a midyear basis—amounted to about $400 million for FM Global’s clients.
He said membership credits, based on the tenure of a client being an FM Global policyholder, have totaled nearly $1.7 billion since the merger.
SILVER CIRCLE
CHARTIS INC.
Chubb Group of Insurance Cos.
