21st Century Insurance (NYSE:
TW) is the seventh largest personal auto insurance company in California and insures over 1.5 million automobiles.
21st Century Insurance offers personal automobile, motorcycle, and umbrella insurance in California and automobile insurance in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Washington. The company receives much of its new business through referrals from current policyholders; the average annual renewal rate of existing policyholders is over 90%.
21st Century Insurance's success story begins with its founder Louis W. Foster. After 20 years as an independent agent in the insurance business, Mr. Foster founded the original company in 1958 in Los Angeles as an inter-insurance exchange. An inter-insurance exchange is similar to a cooperative where policyholders work together to finance and insure the losses of the other policyholders.
The one-employee office grew rapidly and in 1966 the company moved to Century City to accommodate its expanding staff and volume of policies. The company celebrated a major milestone at the same time
