American Financial Group

American Financial Group (AFG) is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based insurance holding company built around specialty property and casualty coverage for businesses. Its main underwriting arm, Great American Insurance, traces its roots to 1872. The holding company took its current form in 1959 and now trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker AFG.

Website: afginc.com

Head office address: 301 E. Fourth St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Founded: 1959 (insurance operations date to 1872)

Company type: public company (NYSE: AFG)

Business focus: specialty property and casualty insurance for businesses

Regions served: United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Singapore

History of American Financial Group

AFG’s insurance business dates back to 1872, when German American Insurance Company, later renamed Great American Insurance Company, sold its first policy to a rubber comb factory. Cincinnati businessman Carl H. Lindner Jr. began investing in the insurer’s parent company in the early 1970s and built the holding structure that became American Financial Group. Several milestones since then mark its shift toward specialty commercial coverage.

Key milestones include:

• 1974: Lindner merges National General Corporation into American Financial Corporation, refocusing the business on insurance
• 2003: the group takes Infinity Property and Casualty public and exits the personal auto insurance business
• 2010: National Interstate, a majority-owned AFG subsidiary, acquires Vanliner, an insurer of the moving and storage industry
• 2020: AFG exits the Lloyd’s of London market through the sale of Neon Underwriting
• 2021: the company sells its annuity business to Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company
• 2023: American Financial Group acquires Crop Risk Services from AIG, expanding its agribusiness lines

These changes trace a steady move away from personal lines and annuities and toward specialty commercial P&C. Great American Insurance now carries forward more than 150 years of underwriting history under the AFG umbrella.

What does American Financial Group insure?

The company organizes its specialty P&C business into three broad groupings, spread across more than 35 individual divisions. Coverage areas include:

• property and transportation insurance, including inland and ocean marine, aviation, and trucking-related lines
• specialty casualty products, such as executive and professional liability, excess and surplus lines, and workers compensation
• specialty financial coverage, including fidelity, surety, and trade credit insurance for lending and leasing institutions
• niche lines such as agribusiness, equine mortality, and environmental insurance

Great American Insurance distributes these products mainly through independent agents and brokers. This structure lets individual divisions set their own underwriting approach, a hallmark of how American Financial Group organizes its specialty business.

AFG in the market

American Financial Group focuses on niche and specialty commercial insurance rather than broad personal lines, a strategy sharpened by its exit from annuities and the Lloyd’s market. Its specialty divisions operate with a fair amount of autonomy, letting them tailor underwriting and distribution to industries such as agriculture, trucking, and financial institutions.

This structure has helped the group build durable positions in markets that larger, more generalist insurers often overlook. International branches in Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Singapore extend its specialty and trade credit lines beyond the US.