Five Questions with OneBeacon Financial Services’ Craig Collins

Our latest edition of “Five Questions With” features Craig Collins, President, Financial Services. Read on to learn more about him!

1. What was your first insurance job?
In 1988, I was recruited out of the University of New Mexico to go work for St. Paul Companies in the Seattle office. My background and degree were in Finance/Banking so I was placed in the Bond Department. I started working with Financial Institutions, and have been working with them ever since.

2. What experiences growing up do you think best prepared you for a leadership role?
I grew up on the Navajo Reservation in northern New Mexico. The hierarchy, decision-making and values I was exposed to from that culture helped me see situations from different perspectives. As a result, it has positively changed the way I conduct business or react to potential conflict by realizing that there are many different ways to arrive at a conclusion.

3. What is your proudest professional moment?
It would be first time I signed on to a line slip and used my “scratch” at Lloyd’s of London. I was given an opportunity to work in London for a few years. I would start the morning with European/Australian risks, then sit at the box during the afternoon session at Lloyd’s, and complete the day working with U.S./Canadian accounts.

4. Can you share a fun-fact about yourself that our readers would be surprised to learn?
A book that I wrote in college is housed in the Library of Congress main reading room in Washington, D.C. I also have an arcade in the room above my garage. I’m a kid of the 80s and spent many hours playing video games and pinball machines at the local arcade. Some people fix old cars, I fix old pinball machines.

5. What is the best advice you’ve ever received? The best advice I ever received was from my dad. He was a teacher/principal/bus driver/cook at the school on the reservation where I grew up. “Be honest and dependable.”