American Premier Underwriters is a property and

casualty insurance Casualty insurance is a defined term which broadly encompasses insurance not directly concerned with life insurance, health insurance, or property insurance. Casualty insurance is mainly liability coverage of an individual or organization for ne ...

company that was established as the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1846. It was formerly known as the

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and th ...

and it currently owns non-rail assets. The company is headquartered in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...

. In addition to casualty insurance, the company is also in the business of fire and marine insurance.

History

During the nineteenth century the company was the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was established on April 13, 1846. In March 1994, the company went through a name change and became American Premier Underwriters, Inc. In December 1994, the company, which was 40.4 percent owned by the

American Financial Corporation American Financial Group, Inc. is an American financial services holding company based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its primary businesses are insurance and investments. Lines of business American Financial Group's major insurance division operates ...

, announced that it would be acquiring the parent company in a stock merger. In 1995, as a publicly traded company, APU reportedly had 5,400 employees and sales of $1.8 billion.

Amtrak lawsuit

The company sued

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

to force the passenger railroad company to redeem shares that Penn Central received at the time it transferred much of its passenger rail assets to Amtrak. The case was dismissed in 2015.

References

Companies based in Cincinnati Financial services companies of the United States {{US-finance-company-stub