Neal S. Wolin's background prior to joining The Hartford was largely in government service, but even before coming aboard the carrier in March 2001, he was no stranger to financial services industry concerns.
Indeed, Mr. Wolin–now president and chief operating officer for property and casualty operations at The Hartford Financial Services Group–said he did "a fair amount of work and had a lot of interaction with the financial services sector" while serving as general counsel for the U.S. Treasury Department.
Much of his exposure to the industry came during his work on the Financial Modernization Act of 1999–better known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act–which removed regulatory hurdles preventing consolidation among banks and insurers.
He started with The Hartford as executive vice president and general counsel, where he oversaw the company's legal, government affairs, corporate relations, communications and marketing functions, as well as p-c insurance runoff operations. "That gave me an opportunity to become more familiar with the liability side of the business," he said.
Today, he is in charge of The Hartford's entire p-c operation, with workers' compensation accounting for "a big chunk of our business," including the small commercial, middle-market and national account sectors. (NU's list of the Top-50 workers' comp writers lists the Hartford Fire & Casualty Group fifth, with nearly $2.6 billion in written premiums last year. See page 23 for the full rankings.)
Mr. Wolin–who is also a member of The Hartford's Office of the Chairman–was named the Treasury Department's general counsel by President Bill Clinton in November 1999, after serving as deputy general counsel from 1995 to 1999.
In January 2001, Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers awarded Mr. Wolin the Alexander Hamilton Award–the highest honor given by the department.
But prior to joining Treasury, Mr. Wolin served in the White House as the executive assistant to National Security Advisor Anthony Lake and then Deputy National Secretary Advisor Samuel R. Berger.
Before that, he was the deputy legal adviser at the National Security Council, providing foreign affairs and legal advice to the national security advisor and the counsel to the president.
Mr. Wolin has also served as special assistant to three directors of Central Intelligence–William H. Webster, Robert M. Gates and R. James Woolsey.
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