Markel Group

Markel Group is an American specialty insurance holding company headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia, established in 1930 and controlled for more than five decades as a private, family-influenced business before its 1986 initial public offering on what is now the New York Stock Exchange. Its insurance operations, carried on through Markel Specialty, Markel International, Markel Global Reinsurance and related units, focus on specialty and hard-to-place commercial risks rather than standard personal or commercial lines, and the group also owns the insurance-linked securities manager Nephila and the program administrator State National. Markel operates from more than 75 offices in 18 countries and, beyond insurance, has assembled a diversified group of non-insurance operating businesses often compared to Berkshire Hathaway's own conglomerate structure.