The insurer founded in a Sussex County general store will move its executive leadership to a leased tower in Short Hills over the next three years, leaving behind an owned campus that supplies nearly a quarter of the borough's tax collections and no answers about what becomes of it.
On May 12, 2026, John J. Marchioni stood at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square and rang the closing bell. The occasion was Selective Insurance Group's 100th anniversary, a century that began in the front window of a general store in Branchville, a Sussex County borough of 791 people per the 2020 census. This summer, their moving trucks will start rolling east, out of town.
In its annual report, filed in February, the company told investors that "many Branchville operations, including our Executive Leadership Team, will be relocating beginning in mid-2026 and continuing through 2029." The legal address on the filing, and on every filing through late July, still reads 40 Wantage Avenue, Branchville.
The destination is 103 John F. Kennedy Parkway in Short Hills, a four-story former Dun & Bradstreet headquarters in Millburn Township that Selective has leased in full: 122,525 square feet under a long-term agreement announced October 14, 2025, by Cushman & Wakefield. The landlord is Columbia Pacific Advisors, a Seattle firm that has bankrolled a full renovation of the building on a parcel opposite The Mall at Short Hills. Selective revealed the move not in a press release but in a LinkedIn post, NJBIZ reported at the time.
A century ago Selective was born in Branchville. According to the company, the origin story begins with a wrecked carriage. A runaway horse destroyed a carriage that shopkeeper Daniel L.B. Smith had lent to a friend, who worked as a banker and sold insurance on the side. Smith would not let the friend pay him back for the wreck. When the friend left town, he handed over a few policy papers — coverage for farms and homes he had already written. Smith took the documents and opened an agency from a desk in his store in Branchville.
In 1926, he put up $20,000 and advertised with a promise to keep someone at the desk until sundown. Selected Risks Insurance Company was born that year. The first president was Dr. L.B. Hoagland; Smith himself took the job in 1936. The wrecked carriage remains at the Branchville headquarters to this day.
The campus carries a quarter of the borough's tax base
The town itself has been shrinking for two generations. Branchville incorporated in 1898 out of Frankford Township, taking its name from a branch of the Paulins Kill river, and packs those 791 residents into six-tenths of a square mile. The 1960 census counted a peak population of 963. Every count since has been smaller.
The campus that Selective is leaving is not a leasehold. It owns 315,000 square feet on 55.05 acres at 40 Wantage Avenue; property records show a $30 million assessment and place the deed in Book 1613, Page 311 at the Sussex County Clerk's office. At the borough's 2025 general tax rate of 2.516, the annual bill comes to roughly $754,800.
Branchville collected $3,248,569 in property taxes in 2025 across municipal, county and school purposes, according to the borough's budget documents. Selective's share therefore works out to nearly a quarter (23.2 percent) of every tax dollar in a borough whose entire municipal operation runs on about $1.53 million a year.
The borough's general tax rate climbed from 1.939 in 2015 to 2.516 in 2025, a 29.8 percent increase in ten years, while its 2024 year-end surplus thinned to $416,292. School taxes accounted for $2.18 million of the 2024 collections, and county taxes $709,587.
Branchville children attend the Frankford Township Consolidated School District through eighth grade; its 2025 budget drew down $104,596 from fund balance, and its tax rate rose 18.7 percent over the decade.
From Frankford, students move to High Point Regional High School, which serves five Sussex County municipalities and enters the 2026-27 school year with 783 students, a $2.67 million unrestricted deficit and a tentative $25.7 million budget carrying a $19.1 million tax levy, district records show. State aid cuts slashed $584,563 from the budget in a single year (2022) in a district that funds 77 percent of its schools locally.
High Point Superintendent Scott D. Ripley called the aid reductions a hardship for Sussex County communities at the time. "I understand this is being borne by the taxpayer," he said in March 2022. "It is not the will of the board."
In addition to the taxes, the company has given back to the schools its levies support. Selective donated 400 laptops to the Kids in Need Foundation during its first Week of Giving in 2020, the New Jersey Herald reported. For 16 consecutive years the Branchville office has run a Build-A-Bike event benefiting Project Self-Sufficiency's Season of Hope Toy Drive, donating more than 300 bicycles. Its corporate foundation funds an annual scholarship through the Sussex County Community College Foundation, according to the company careers site.
None of this changes the tax math. Selective still owns the campus, so the roughly $754,800 bill still comes due. But property taxes are tied to assessed value, not to the tenant's presence: if Selective sells at a discount, or if a half-empty building triggers a lower assessment, the rateable shrinks. What that would do to a borough whose entire municipal operation relies on a major corporate taxpayer is the open question beneath every budget above, and no one has answered it.
The company is thriving, but leaving anyway
Selective reported $5.34 billion in revenue for 2025 and net income of $466.4 million, more than double the prior year's $207 million. That year they returned $182 million to shareholders. The money reached Branchville, too. On the Wantage Avenue campus, it built ground- and garage-mounted solar arrays that generated 3.3 million kilowatt-hours last year, per its annual report. In September 2022, about three years before they announced the move, the company opened its restored historic office building in downtown, which it had repurchased in 2019. The building became a new corporate training facility and corporate hotel in the borough's business district, according to the project's architect and the company's website.
Selective's corporate responsibility page traced these investments to its century in Branchville, where D.L.B. Smith helped establish the Sussex County Farm & Horse Show (New Jersey State Fair) and raise funds for the Sussex County Tuberculosis League. The page also noted that it had also contributed more than $1 million to the town’s utility infrastructure over five years, including installing natural gas lines and a sewer system. It had also given money to the borough’s fire department to purchase a new fire truck and helped build a new playground. The company was still investing in Branchville, even as it prepared to leave it.
The chief executive who made the call to move, John J. Marchioni, joined Selective in 1998 as a government affairs specialist. He spent the next 28 years climbing the ladder, landing in the chief executive's office in February 2020 and the chairmanship in 2022. The newest face on the leadership team, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Brennan, arrived from Progressive in October 2024, one year before the announcement.
The announcement itself doubled as a job ad. "Selective is on the move!" the company's LinkedIn post began, promising a building that "offers convenient access from across the Northeast Corridor states and a modern, collaborative workspace designed to support flexible workstyles and employee well-being." The hashtags were #HiringNow and #ShortHillsHQ. Branchville sits more than 60 miles from Manhattan. Short Hills, which lies much closer, offered the company a more competitive location.
The most-reacted reply on the LinkedIn thread came from Cheryl Whitehead, a human resources director at Casio USA: "Huge loss for Sussex County."
On Selective's careers site, a page titled "A New Chapter Begins in Short Hills, NJ" describes an office that will "blend modern design principles in an aesthetic that reflects our rich history." A hundred years in Branchville survives in the new building's design language, as an aesthetic.
Selective's hybrid-work policy requires office staff on site only 40 percent of the time, 60 percent for management, and 1,380 of its roughly 2,800 employees now work from home, the annual report says. Perhaps 610 remain in the corporate office. The leased space in Short Hills amounts to about 39 percent of the owned campus's footprint.
The job listings for Short Hills include a senior vice president of investor relations and an assistant vice president for what the company calls a brand-new AI Center of Excellence; the company advertises the role in Short Hills, Charlotte and Hartford at a salary of $184,000 to $249,000.
One posting tells candidates that "Until the new Short Hills headquarters is operational, the successful candidate will work in our Branchville, N.J. location during the interim." Branchville, in the company's hiring language, is now the interim office.
Few have commented on the move
Nine days after the lease announcement in October 2025, Selective executives held their third-quarter earnings call. A review of the transcript shows no mention of Short Hills, Branchville or the relocation at all.
Branchville itself is marking the centennial, not the move. In June of this year, the Branchville Borough Historical Society opened a months-long celebration of Selected Risks' early years, displaying D.L.B. Smith's desk and the photograph of his employees at matching desks in the old office. On the society's Facebook thread, one commenter wondered what Smith "would think about Selective moving to Short Hills." Another replied, "very sad!!!!”
Trenton's only documented touchpoint came in December 2025, when the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved a Selective subsidiary's purchase of about $3 million in tax credit awards for $2.4 million through the Innovation Evergreen Fund, a legal discount program. No Grow New Jersey or Economic Redevelopment and Growth award attaches to the relocation itself, and the agency issued no project-specific announcement for the Short Hills site.
The 24th District's legislators have said nothing on the record. State Senator Parker Space (R, 24th District) is a former mayor of nearby Wantage Borough and a 1987 High Point graduate. Assemblyman Mike Inganamort (R, 24th), author of a legislative package he calls the Small Town Rescue Plan, toured the Branchville campus in March 2025 and posted that Selective is "a major New Jersey employer with headquarters and deep roots in Sussex County," adding, "We have work to do." Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R, 24th District) serves on the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee. A review of their official releases and social media accounts has found no statements, resolutions or public questions about the move.
No one has said what becomes of the campus
Selective has said some teams will remain at 40 Wantage Avenue without saying which, or how many of the roughly 610 corporate-office employees will commute east. No WARN notice appears in the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development's 2026 archive. And Selective has disclosed no plan for the 55 owned acres to the borough, the schools or the public.
On paper, nothing has happened yet. Every filing through this month still lists Branchville as the principal executive office, and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance records 40 Wantage Avenue as the company's statutory home office. The careers page tells a different story about the future: "We are excited to transition our corporate headquarters to Short Hills, New Jersey, beginning in mid-2026."
The carriage is still in Branchville. Whether it also makes the trip east, the company has not said.
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Sources
• Mike Zummo, "High Point approves 1.8 percent school tax increase," Advertiser-News North (March 29, 2022)
• Mike Inganamort, Facebook post on Selective headquarters visit (March 13, 2025)
• Branchville Borough, 2025 Municipal Budget and 2026 Advertised Budget (2025–2026)
• Branchville Borough Historical Society, Facebook, "The Early Years of Selected Risks" (June 10, 2026)
• CoStar Group, report on Selective headquarters lease (Oct. 8, 2025)
• Elise Maguire Ferrara, "Arranges 122,525-Square-Foot Headquarters Lease for Selective Insurance Group in Short Hills, New Jersey," Cushman & Wakefield (Oct. 17, 2025)
• Frankford Township Consolidated School District, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, fiscal year 2025 (2024–25 school year)
• High Point Regional High School District, budget and audit records (2022–2026)
• HQW Architects, Facebook, grand opening announcement for Selective corporate training facility (Sept. 29, 2022)
• New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, examination reports (2022)
• New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, WARN notice archive (2026)
• New Jersey Economic Development Authority, board approval and release on Innovation Evergreen Fund tax credit sale (Dec. 19, 2025)
• Kyle Morel, "Sussex County-based insurer raises $30,000 for five charities," New Jersey Herald (Dec. 22, 2020)
• "Selective Insurance HQ move follows 122K-sf lease in Short Hills," NJBIZ (Oct. 15, 2025)
• Joshua Burd, "Selective Insurance moving headquarters, leases 123,000 sq. ft. in Short Hills office deal," Real Estate NJ (Oct. 14, 2025)
• Brett Johnson, "Selective's staff could double Branchville's population … but many work remotely — just one benefit," ROI-NJ (May 28, 2019)
• Selective Insurance Group, careers site, "A New Chapter Begins in Short Hills, NJ" (accessed July 2026)
• Selective Insurance Group, careers site, job listings including AVP, AI COE Leader, Req ID 5485 (accessed July 2026)
• Selective Insurance Group, LinkedIn, headquarters announcement (October 2025)
• Selective Insurance Group, SEC Form 10-K, Annual Report for fiscal year 2025 (Feb. 9, 2026)
• Selective Insurance Group, Investor Relations Release, 2025 Annual Report (April 29, 2026)
• Selective Insurance Group, third-quarter 2025 earnings call transcript (Oct. 23, 2025)
• Selective Insurance Group, "Impacting Our Communities," Corporate Social Responsibility (accessed July 2026)
• Sussex County Board of Taxation, "2025 Abstract of Ratables," County of Sussex, Branchville Borough entry (2025)
• Sussex County Clerk, property records for 40 Wantage Avenue, Branchville, Deed Book 1613, Page 311
• Sussex County Community College Foundation, scholarship records (2023)