ACE Limited → Chubb Corporation
ACE, a Zurich-based insurer set up in Bermuda only 30 years earlier, paid $28.3bn in cash and shares for the Chubb Corporation of New Jersey — and then gave up its own name, operating the combined group as Chubb under ACE's management.
Created the largest publicly traded property and casualty insurer, with the combined group taking the Chubb name.
- Value
- $28.3B
- Announced
- July 2015
- Completed
- January 2016
- Sector
- Insurance
- Deal type
- acquisition
- Acquirer
- ACE Limited (Switzerland)
- Target
- Chubb Corporation (United States)
Why it mattered
ACE was set up in 1985, funded by 34 US companies struggling to buy excess liability and directors' and officers' cover during the liability insurance crisis. It grew by acquisition — Cigna's global property and casualty business, including the Insurance Company of North America, for $3.45bn in 1999 — moved its domicile from the Cayman Islands to Zurich in 2008, and had been run since 2004 by Evan Greenberg. Chubb, based in Warren, New Jersey, was in Greenberg's words "a venerable company with a great brand". His case was complementarity: where the two overlapped, one was stronger among large corporations and the other in the middle market.
The agreement was announced on 1 July 2015. Chubb shareholders would receive $62.93 in cash and 0.6019 of an ACE share, worth $124.13 at the time — a 30% premium — and would own 30% of the enlarged company. The cash was to come from $9bn of the two companies' surplus funds and $5.3bn of new bonds, and ACE expected about $650m of annual cost savings by the third year. Greenberg would be chairman and chief executive, Chubb's John Finnegan would help with integration as an executive vice-chairman, and four Chubb directors would join the board. The company would stay Swiss, with its principal offices in Zurich, while Warren would house much of the North American headquarters. After the final regulatory approvals the deal closed on 14 January 2016, and the group took the Chubb name.
What it left behind
The combination became a platform for further purchases rather than an end in itself. Chubb completed the acquisition of Cigna's accident, health and life business in Asia for $5.36bn on 1 July 2022, and bought the pet-insurance agency Healthy Paws from Aon in 2024. In 2025 it reported record net income of $10.31bn on $54.8bn of net premiums written, and Greenberg was still chairman and chief executive in July 2026. The deal shows that the name on the door and the control of the business can be traded separately: ACE gave up the first to gain a renowned brand and kept the second.