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HAVING A POSITIVE IMPACT ON OUR COMMUNITIES AND SOCIETY

To a large extent, our success is based on the strength and well-being of the communities where our employees live and work and society at large. We are committed to being a responsible corporate citizen by making a positive difference through our work and doing social good. Through Selective’s philanthropic arm, the Selective Insurance Group Foundation, we help empower safe, sustainable, just, and diverse communities by contributing time, money, and resources.

Our Community Support
In Action

Approximately $768K in annual donations were made through The Selective Insurance Group Foundation to support local and nationwide charities in 2023.

80% of our philanthropic giving in 2023 was directed to community-based charities supporting local residents.

The Selective Insurance Group Foundation provided $114,800 in matching gifts in 2023 to double donations made by our employees and President's Club-level independent insurance agency partners.

Selective employees volunteered 5,200+ hours in 2023, giving back to their local community and making a difference.

Nearly 350 employees participated in our blood drive events in 2023 to help our local communities and earned an additional paid day off in recognition of their contribution.

INVESTING IN BRANCHVILLE, NEW JERSEY

Investing in local communities is core to our business. This commitment started with our founder D.L.B. Smith who helped organize events that evolved into what is known today as the New Jersey State Fair and he raised funds for the Sussex County (NJ) Tuberculosis League. Today, we continue to make meaningful contributions that help strengthen the communities where we live and work.

As a responsible corporate citizen, we continuously invest in our hometown – Branchville, NJ – where we were founded in 1926. Over the last five years, we invested over $1 million in enhancing the utility infrastructure to benefit the environment and economic vitality of our Branchville, including:

  • Enabling the natural gas installation throughout the borough in coordination with the conversion of our HVAC system to gas from oil,
  • Facilitating the installation of the borough’s sewer system with the decommissioning of our wastewater treatment plant,
  • Creating a town website providing citizens and prospective employees with important information about Branchville. 
  • Making a donation through the Selective Insurance Group Foundation to the Branchville Hose Company No. 1 for the purchase of a new fire truck.
  • Contributing to a new playground for Branchville families and children.

In addition, in 2022, we completed renovations of our original office building that we repurchased in 2019, honoring our rich history while meeting today’s business needs. We restored the external brick façade with new fenestration and an ADA-accessible side entrance, and modernized the interior to include a state-of-the-art training classroom, lounge for networking and socializing, and 11 guest rooms.  These upgrades to the once vacant building are helping to transform the downtown area and attract more businesses and visitors.

We recently invested over $1 million in enhancing utility infrastructure for our headquarters and the surrounding community. As the owner of the largest buildings in Branchville, our commitment to convert our furnaces from oil to natural gas was a predicate to the installation of natural gas lines throughout the Borough - as was also the case with our commitment to decommission our septic plant and the installation of sewer lines. These significant investments will benefit the environment and economic vitality of our Branchville community.

Investing Across the Country

Selective invests in indirect state and federal incentives to finance programs with social benefits or objectives. Examples include investments in low-income housing tax credits, historic property credits, rural investment programs, economic redevelopment credits, renewable energy credits, and scholarship tax credit programs. Selective has been participating in and making significant investments in these types of programs since 2008.

INVESTING IN SUSTAINABILITY

We understand our impact on the environment, our policyholders, and local communities. We seek to minimize our environmental footprint by implementing conservation and recycling initiatives and investing in renewable energy. We also enhance the vibrancy and resilience of the communities where we live and work by employing and providing benefits to our talented individuals, developing and maintaining close relationships with our distribution partners, making prompt claim and vendor payments consistent with our policyholder obligations, and emphasizing sustainability, volunteerism, and philanthropy.

We have written about our sustainability efforts and ongoing efforts to address climate-related risks and opportunities, including publishing our third sustainability report, Progress Through Impact, and our second Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Report. In February 2024, MSCI upgraded our ESG rating to “AA,” among the highest ratings in our industry