The Queen's College Record 2020

DICK STEWART
Richard E. Stewart died at age 85 on 13 October
2019. After graduating summa cum laude from West
Virginia University, he came to Queen’s in 1955 to study
Jurisprudence as a Rhodes Scholar.
Obituaries
Following Oxford, he served in the US Army providing
legal assistance to soldiers of the 43rd brigade of Hawaii
which had been distinguished for its bravery during
World War II. He then earned his jurisprudence degree
with honors from Harvard Law School in 1959. He was
the Superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department from 1967 to 1971,
and became a leader in insurance in the United States and recognised internationally.
He initiated legislation that transformed insurance regulation in New York State and
nationwide. Among his innovations were an exploration of the potential of no fault auto
insurance; establishing an insurance pool to make essential fire insurance available
to residents of urban ghettos; and a program to make auto insurance more widely
available, to protect consumers against insurance cancellation and against loss due
to insurer insolvency. Governor Nelson Rockefeller described Stewart as ‘the best
Superintendent of Insurance in the history of the State’.
Dick went on to be Senior Vice President and General Counsel of First National City
Bank, now Citibank and Citigroup. In 1973, he became Senior Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer of Chubb & Son. In 1981, he left to start his own firm, Stewart
Economics, Inc., a consulting firm that specialised in insurance and insurance
regulation. His major work became consulting for legal teams involved in major
controversies such as water pollution and the national breast implant cases.
He was a member of the Special Panel for the US Senate Committee on Presidential
Campaign Practices (1974) and the United Nations Panel of Experts on Transnational
Bank Failure. He was a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and
of the National Academy of Social Insurance. He was a member of the Phi Beta
Kappa Associates, The Century Association in New York City and the Cosmos Club in
Washington, D.C.
In 2006, when he reduced his work load, Dick began a new life in San Francisco
where he became involved with the effort to protect the city’s waterfront from overdevelopment.
He played a major role in a pair of ballot measure campaigns in 2013 and
2014 known as the ‘No Wall on the Waterfront’ where voters overwhelmingly rejected
excessive waterfront height increases and approved permanent waterfront preservation
rules. He now leaves a beautiful and protected waterfront for all to use and enjoy.
Besides his varied and consequential achievements, positions and accomplishments
were his extraordinary memory of past events and people; keen, sharp intellect; and
College Record 2020 | The Queen’s College 135