Clarendon National Insurance Company is a U.S.-based property and casualty insurance company domiciled in New Jersey. It is a member of the Clarendon Insurance Group, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanover Re, a company headquartered in Germany. Hanover Re is one of the largest reinsurance providers in the world and among the top five life and health reinsurance providers. The Clarendon Insurance Group is actually composed of four Property and Casualty insurance providers: Clarendon American Insurance, Clarendon Select Insurance, Harbor Specialty Insurance, and Clarendon National. Clarendon National is a leading writer of "Program business" in the country.

Clarendon Reinsurance Program

Essentially, reinsurance is insurance for insurance companies. The original writer of the policy pays a premium to a reinsurance company to assume some of the risk associated with the policy. Doing so helps spread the risk of the policy and makes the company less vulnerable to financial calamity. Program business is basically the wholesale of insurance. The underwriter or developer of an insurance program develops it in the background, and then brings the insurance program to market through agents, smaller underwriters, or subsidiary companies.

Clarendon is quite successful in its work with program business. It has risen to be a leader in property and casualty insurance by provision of program business and has a record of strong earnings over time. Clarendon is also highly rated by A.M. Best, an insurance company rating organization.

Clarendon Today

Through its affiliated insurance companies and their agents, as well as its program business, Clarendon National provides all sorts of personal and commercial line insurance throughout the country. Individual policyholder figures are not available primarily because Clarendon's business is program business. However, financial statements show that, in 2003, Clarendon reported a surplus in excess of its actuarial liability of almost $580 million. In addition, in 2004, its parent company Hanover Re had assets of over $1.2 billion and premium revenues of over $800 million.