Insurance companies in New Jersey: 729 carriers, 2,588 agencies and how to check any of them

This page is for three kinds of reader: a New Jersey household or business shopping for coverage or stuck on a claim, someone looking for an insurance job, and a company that sells software, data or services to insurers and agencies. It separates the companies that carry the risk from the ones that sell policies, names the insurers based in the state from public records, and shows how to check any of them. It doesn't rank or recommend carriers.

Carriers, agencies and the rest

"Insurance company" covers two different businesses. A carrier (NAICS 5241) underwrites the policy: it sets the premium, holds the reserves and pays the claims. An agency or brokerage (NAICS 524210) sells policies, either for one carrier (a captive agent) or for many (an independent agent or broker), and earns commission. A third group handles claims and benefits paperwork for carriers and self-insured employers. County Business Patterns 2023 splits New Jersey's 3,692 establishments like this:

Average pay is our calculation from payroll and employees. The carrier rows also include nine "other direct" carriers whose employment the Census Bureau flags as high-noise. The third-party administrator employee count is published but flagged: noise added for confidentiality changed it by 5% or more, so we leave it out.

Ranked against the other states, New Jersey is 11th by carrier establishments and 13th by carrier employment. On the agency side it is only 17th by establishments but 7th by employment, which means its agencies and service firms run larger than most.

How big the offices are

Statewide, 3,183 establishments have fewer than 20 employees, 355 have 20 to 99 and 154 have 100 or more. Carriers account for 98 of the 154 large offices and 10 of the 14 with 1,000 or more, by our sum of the carrier size classes. On average New Jersey's insurance establishments have 25.0 employees, and the state holds 2.09% of the country's 176,459.

What the counts leave out. County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees, so a carrier with three New Jersey offices counts three times and a one-person agency with no staff isn't counted at all. Jobs are counted where the office is: a New Jersey resident who works at a Manhattan insurer is counted in New York.

Insurers headquartered in New Jersey

Four SEC-registered listed companies in insurance have New Jersey business addresses. We checked each against its latest annual report on Form 10-K:

Most New Jersey carriers aren't listed companies. The Department of Banking and Insurance (DOBI) publishes the registered agents of 65 domestic insurance companies, meaning companies chartered in New Jersey. The list includes New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company, Horizon Healthcare Services, The Prudential Insurance Company of America, six Selective companies, three High Point companies, three Palisades companies and Oscar Garden State Insurance Corporation. National groups also keep New Jersey-chartered companies for business in the state, which is why Allstate New Jersey Property and Casualty, Progressive Garden State and Chubb Insurance Company of New Jersey appear. Being domestic says where a company is chartered and regulated first, not how big it is or where its staff sit.

How to check a carrier or an agent

1. Confirm the carrier is licensed. DOBI's list of Licensed Insurance Carriers gives each insurer's name, address and NAIC company number. Use the exact legal name on your policy or quote, because insurance groups write through subsidiaries with similar names.
2. Confirm the agent or agency. DOBI's Licensee Search covers individual producers and agencies.
3. Look at the complaint record. DOBI's consumer page doesn't publish complaint ratios. The NAIC's Consumer Insurance Search lets you look up a company's complaints, licenses and financial information; open the report options for the company that issues your policy.
4. If something goes wrong, take it to the company first, then file with DOBI online, by mail or fax with its complaint form, or call 609-292-7272 or 1-800-446-7467. Formal complaints must be in writing: include the policy number, the company and agent names and copies of denial or nonrenewal letters.

A clean license and a short complaint record are a floor, not a recommendation. Compare coverage and price on the same terms for every quote.

Working in New Jersey insurance

Pay is the state's draw. The industry averaged $133,728 per employee in 2023, carriers $158,225 and life insurers $222,133, against a national average of $107,137 for all carriers (our calculation from the national County Business Patterns totals). Agencies and brokerages pay less than carriers, but New Jersey's $115,546 is still about $25,000 above the national agency figure. The 154 establishments with 100 or more employees are where most of the corporate jobs (actuarial, underwriting, claims, IT) are concentrated.

Selling to New Jersey carriers and agencies

The two halves buy different things. Carriers buy policy, billing and claims systems, property and vehicle data, actuarial and IT services, and contract staff, through IT, claims, underwriting and procurement teams. Agencies buy agency management systems, comparative raters, CRM, websites and lead generation, and errors and omissions cover; below about ten employees, the owner decides. Selective's 10-K says it sells only through independent agents and wholesale brokers, so in commercial lines the agency is often the gatekeeper even for products aimed at carriers.

Illustrative example. The company, rates and results are invented.

Northgate Rater (northgate-rater.example) sells a tool that turns commercial insurance applications into carrier-ready submissions. It targets New Jersey agencies with 10 to 49 employees: 225 plus 123, or 348 establishments. It keeps the ones whose websites show a commercial lines team, an assumed 40%, or about 139. A personal email and a call to each agency principal, at a 6% reply rate, gives 8 conversations; closing one in four brings 2 new customers at $6,000 a year, $12,000 in new annual revenue from one pass. Checking 348 websites for commercial lines is the slow part: Bebop researches each agency from a plain-language description.

Subject: [Agency name]'s commercial submissions

[First name], I saw [agency] writes [contractors / restaurants / habitational] business across [county]. Agencies your size tell us retyping the same application for five markets is where a CSR's week goes. We turn one application into carrier-ready submissions in minutes, and [number] New Jersey agencies use it. Worth 15 minutes to see it on one of your live accounts?

Sources for New Jersey insurance

For the national picture, see the largest insurance companies in the US, and for the right industry code when you file or build a list, the NAICS code for an insurance agency.

Next step: compare New Jersey's insurers with the national leaders in the largest insurance companies in the US.