Mr. Galanski: Navigators' history goes back to 1974 when we were formed as a marine underwriting agency, underwriting insurance polices on behalf of other insurance companies. In 1983, we formed Navigators Insurance Company and began taking risk and in 1986, the insurance company was taken public on the NASDAQ exchange as The Navigators Group, Inc (NAVG). We are now 22 years into our life as a public company and our underwriting agencies write business on behalf of our two US domiciled insurance companies and Syndicate 1221 at Lloyd's of London. Marine and energy business continues to be about half of the business of our company. Over the last six or seven years, we've built a number of other specialty product lines, principally in the United States casualty market and the D&O business.
TWST: What would you say have been the principle drivers of the company's
success?
Mr. Galanski: We are committed to technical underwriting excellence and compete
on the basis of intellectual capital. This requires that we hire exceptional
people who have track records of making money in their area of specialization.
We are a niche-oriented insurer and we employ professionals who have a very deep
knowledge of an area of specialization; whether that's offshore energy, cargo
insurance or public company directors and officer liability. We provide what we
believe is an environment that gives them a great deal of latitude to exercise
their professional skills, certainly with appropriate management controls, but
encourage employees to practice their craft to the best of their abilities.
Tickers included in this excerpt: NAVG
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.