Property-casualty insurer The Travelers Cos. is setting up an institute in Washington, D.C., to be closer to decisions that will craft the industry for years to come.

The insurer announced the establishment of The Travelers Institute, “as a means of participating in public policy dialogue on matters of interest to the property-casualty insurance sector, as well as the financial services industry more broadly,” according to a company announcement.

Travelers said the new entity will use its senior management to provide information, analysis and recommendations to regulators and public policy makers.

Jay S. Fishman

“Travelers is committed to being a constructive participant in the public policy dialogue with regard to important issues facing our industry,” said Jay S. Fishman, chairman and CEO of Travelers, in a statement. “We hope to contribute to solutions on a wide range of issues that face our customers, our agents and brokers, and the communities we serve.”

The institute will be led by Joan Woodward, who served for 12 years on Capitol Hill on both the house Budget and Senate Finance Committee staffs, before beginning nearly a decade at Goldman Sachs where she served as the founding executive director of The Global Markets Institute. Woodward joined Travelers in 2008 as executive vice president of public policy.

She will coordinate with the Travelers Board of Directors’ Public Policy Advisory Committee, comprised of Janet Dolan, Kenneth Duberstein, Cleve Killingsworth Jr. and Blythe McGarvie.

The insurer has also created a separate advisory board of public policy and industry experts to “assist in framing and guiding the work of the institute,” Travelers said.

The inaugural members of the board are Richard I. Beattie, Leslie Disharoon, Richard Herring and Alice Rivlin.

Beattie is chairman of Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP and a former special presidential emissary to Cyprus under the Clinton Administration; Disharoon is a former executive with Monumental Corporation and the Johns Hopkins Health System Endowment; Herring is a professor of international banking and professor of finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania; and Rivlin is the former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board and founding director of the Congressional Budget Office.