Human Capital Management: Total Rewards

Our compensation and benefits programs are designed to attract, motivate and retain high-performing employees and to help employees be healthy and productive in all aspects of their lives. Our long-standing pay-for-performance philosophy differentiates awards based on individual and company performance, regardless of gender, race or any other protected classification. In addition, our comprehensive, flexible benefit options are designed to meet the physical, mental and financial needs of employees and their families.

Compensation

Paying our employees equitably is the foundation of our performance-based culture. Our equitable pay statement outlines our approach. Our compensation processes and controls are designed with the goal of ensuring that we compensate our employees without influence from bias. With the assistance of independent, outside experts, we annually review our compensation practices to help ensure equitable pay across the company. Based in part on these measures, we believe that we pay our employees equitably, regardless of gender, race or any other protected classification.

Our minimum hourly wage in the United States is $18. As calculated and reported in our Proxy Statement, in 2023, excluding our Chairman and CEO, the median annual total compensation of all our employees was approximately $117,500. The median annual total compensation of our full-time U.S. employees who worked for Travelers for the entire year was approximately $128,000, putting us in the top quartile for employee pay in the S&P 500.

Travelers’ compensation mix includes base salary, performance-based cash awards and equity grants. The mix of these rewards varies depending on the employee’s role at the company.

• Many employees receive most of their total rewards in the form of base salary and medical and retirement benefits.
• Variable compensation (annual bonus and equity) becomes a larger portion of the total rewards mix for employees at higher levels in the organization. Furthermore, the senior-most executives, who are responsible for the development and execution of our strategic and financial plans, have the largest portion of their compensation tied to performance-based incentives.

Health & wellness

Because our employees are our most valuable asset, we are committed to helping them be healthy and productive in all aspects of their lives. We know that when employees and their families are well – physically, mentally and financially – they can be more fully engaged both personally and professionally. That’s why we offer comprehensive, flexible benefit options that, for our U.S. employees, include medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage; health savings; and flexible spending accounts.

In the United States, our medical plans cover more than 52,000 individuals, including employees, their children and their spouses/domestic partners. In 2023, we paid approximately $270 million in medical-related costs on behalf of our U.S. employees and retirees and their dependents. In our international operations, we provide medical coverage that supplements government-provided plans to our 2,500 employees and their families, subsidizing between 86% and 100% of total employee health benefit costs.

Employees and their eligible family members, including spouses, domestic partners and children, are generally eligible for coverage from the first day of employment. To keep rates affordable, Travelers subsidizes premiums on its health care plans through a cost-sharing model. We subsidize health benefits more heavily for less-compensated employees than for higher-paid employees, such as the company’s named executive officers. Accordingly, our higher-paid employees pay a significantly higher percentage of the cost of their health benefits as compared with our lower-paid employees.

We have a forward-thinking approach to our benefits plan design. We deliver new, innovative ways to support employee health and well-being, including financial incentives for some employees to choose high-quality, low-cost providers and safeguards for the use of opioids to help ensure that doctors, pharmacists and patients work closely together on treatment plans for pain management.

Our wellness program provides easy-to-use tools and resources that empower employees with the information and support they need to achieve their wellness goals. U.S. employees have access to the following:

• Professional in-person or digital counseling, life coaching and support for daily life needs through our employee assistance program. All services are free, confidential and available 24/7 to employees and their household family members.
• Caregiving Support from Wellthy, a program that helps employees navigate the challenges faced as caregivers for children, aging family members, or loved ones with special needs or who are chronically ill.
• MSK Direct, a free service for Travelers employees and their family members facing a cancer diagnosis, which provides guided access to expert cancer treatment and care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center facilities.
• Our myWellness platform, a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use application that allows employees to track activity levels, improve sleep, create challenges with friends, take self-guided courses and much more.
• Wellness champions in more than 50 local offices help cultivate a culture of wellness at Travelers by leveraging employees’ interests and ideas to implement healthy initiatives at local offices.
• Free on-site wellness screenings for employees in our Hartford and St. Paul campuses.
• On-site counseling services for employees in our Hartford campus.

U.S. employees enrolled in a Travelers medical plan also have access to:

• Included Health, a free service for employees and dependents enrolled in a Travelers medical plan that matches members with top-ranked doctors, helps employees obtain second opinions from leading specialists and assists in navigating the health care system. It also connects LGBTQ+ and Black members to care teams that provide inclusive advocacy and care coordination to help ensure that community members feel safe and supported.
• A family building program from Maven, which provides holistic and personalized fertility and family-building support.
• A digital sleep improvement program from Sleepio.
• Our diabetes management program, which is a no-cost service that combines the latest technology with real-time support, facilitating the handling of diabetes for employees and their adult family members.
• Weight management programs with personalized coaching support, resources to help employees make positive changes and digital tools for users to track progress over time.
• Free tobacco cessation programs for employees and family members.
• Free seasonal flu shots for employees through on-site clinics and various retail pharmacies.
• Mobile mammography for eligible employees in certain locations.
• On-site chiropractors and physical therapists for employees in our Hartford campus.

Health & wellness

For more information on how we have protected the safety and health of our employees, see the Safety & Health section of this website.

Savings & retirement

Our 401(k) Savings Plan provides employees with a vehicle to save for their retirement and the opportunity to receive a company match on those contributions. Employees can contribute from 1% to 75% (in whole percentage increments) of their eligible pay as pre-tax 401(k) or after-tax Roth 401(k) contributions, up to the maximum allowed under IRS limits. Travelers annually matches employee 401(k) contributions dollar for dollar, up to 5% of eligible pay. In 2023, the company matched contributions up to $7,500. Employees become 100% vested in company matching contributions after three years of service. Currently, 97% of our employees participate in the Travelers 401(k) Savings Plan. Outside of the United States, we provide defined contribution retirement plans for more than 2,500 employees, with an average company contribution rate of over 8%.

Travelers recognizes that the high cost of education and the obligation of repaying student loans prevent many people from saving for their retirement. The Travelers Paying It Forward Savings Program, our innovative retirement savings benefit, addresses this issue for employees facing student loan debt. When an eligible employee makes a payment toward their student loans, Travelers makes an annual contribution of that amount into that employee’s 401(k) Savings Plan account, dollar for dollar up to the first 5% of eligible pay, to a maximum of $7,500. For the year ending on December 31, 2023, Travelers provided $2 million to match student loan payments for more than 1,000 employees who had enrolled in this benefit. Since the program began in 2020, we’ve contributed more than $8.5 million to the financial security of these employees.

Travelers also assists employees with meeting their retirement needs through the Travelers Pension Plan, an active defined benefit pension plan. Travelers pays the full cost of the employee’s plan benefits; we do not require employees to contribute personally. The plan determines the benefits under a cash balance formula, which provides pay and interest credits to a hypothetical account maintained for the employee with an annual pension credit of approximately 4% of the employee’s pay. In 2023, approximately $600 million went to providing our employees with security in their retirement through pension payments and credits and 401(k) matching contributions.

We also support our employees’ financial success through financial planning services. Thousands of our employees have taken advantage of this offering. Among other things, we offer our U.S. employees:

• A financial wellness assessment that allows employees to get a financial wellness score and personalized checklist to help meet their financial goals.
• Online and text-based retirement planning services, including complimentary consultations and workshops to assist in savings and retirement planning.

Financial security

*Based on the median of the annual total compensation of full-time employees in the United States as reported in our 2024 Proxy Statement.

Work-life

Additional benefits we offer U.S. employees at no cost include the following:

• Basic life insurance of one times their salary, up to $100,000 maximum.
• Short-term disability coverage.
• 20-30 days of annual paid time off, based on years of service, and the ability to purchase up to six additional days per year.
• Paid parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child.
• Adoption assistance and surrogacy reimbursement.
• Company-paid coverage for expenses incurred due to identity fraud.
• Childcare discounts.
• A corporate discount program.
• Paid time off for volunteering.

U.S. employees can enroll in the following additional benefit options:

• Optional life insurance for themselves, their spouses or their children.
• Long-term disability coverage.
• Coverage for a variety of legal services through the legal plan.
• Flexible spending accounts to fund eligible dependent care or health care expenses through pre-tax payroll deductions.