White Mountains Insurance Group (NYSE: WTM) is a holding company with business interests in property and casualty insurance, and reinsurance. The group owns reinsurer Sirius and a 75% stake in specialty insurance carrier OneBeacon. It is based in Hanover, New Hampshire.
It is owned by Jack Byrne who in 1985 was invited to run the troubled Fireman's Fund, then a subsidiary of American Express. Fireman's had incurred $356 million in pretax losses in 1983 and 1984. Byrne greatly improved Fireman's financial performance and initiated a public offering of some of Fireman's shares in 1985. The company was sold to Allianz AG in 1991. Byrne, meanwhile, retained the Fireman's holding company, which he later renamed White Mountains.
Famous quotes containing the words white, mountains, insurance and/or group:
“I can’t really hear the audience applause when I’m on stage. I’m totally immersed in the piece. But sometimes I get a lot of it and wonder, “Now, why did they applaud here?” If it’s a white crowd, they usually applaud because they think it’s a pretty movement. If it’s a black crowd, it’s usually because they identify with the message.”
—Judith Jamison (b. 1944)
“In the mountains there are thousand-year-old trees, but in the towns there are hardly any hundred-year-old people.”
—Chinese proverb.
“In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however, woman’s premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, “until death doth part.””
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The conflict between the need to belong to a group and the need to be seen as unique and individual is the dominant struggle of adolescence.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)