W.R. Berkley (WRB) will increase its quarterly dividend by 7.1 percent to $0.15 per share. Also a $0.50 special dividend will be paid. The insurance holding company has now raised its dividend for 17 consecutive years.

The special dividend will be paid on June 18, 2018, followed by the $0.15 regular dividend payment on July 5, 2018. The new dividend yield for WRB is 0.8% based on the regular dividend and a stock price of $77.03.

W. R. Berkley Corporation is an insurance holding company. The company operates worldwide in two segments of the property casualty insurance business: Insurance and Reinsurance. The insurance business consists of predominantly commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines, admitted lines and specialty personal lines throughout the United States, as well as insurance business in the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, South America, Canada, Mexico, Scandinavia, Asia and Australia. The reinsurance business operates as reinsurance business on a facultative and treaty basis, primarily in the United States, United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and South Africa. Founded in 1967, W. R. Berkley Corporation has grown from a small investment management firm into one of the largest commercial lines property and casualty insurers in the United States. The company has paid cash dividends each year since 1978.