Outgoing CEO reflects on 40-year run at insurance group

When Robert Wagner came back to Columbia in 1971 after serving five years in the Army, including a tour of duty in Vietnam, he had college — not a career — on his mind.
“My sole reason for coming back to Columbia was to go back to school,” he said.
Wagner could not start attending college right away, though, because he had returned mid-semester. He applied to collect unemployment insurance while waiting for school to start and was told he had to be seeking employment to collect.

“They gave me a list of three or four potential employers who might be looking,” said Wagner, who was 27 at the time. “One of them was this little insurance company. They hired me almost 40 years ago. I never escaped, and I never got a penny’s worth of unemployment.”
His first title at Columbia Insurance Group was office manager, but Wagner said his main job was to take care of the mail. “Opening the mail was kind of a treasured position,” he recalled. “Not everyone got to do that.”
From office manager, Wagner was promoted to an agency director and then marketing manager. He was a vice president of various areas of the company and was chief operating officer for a number of years before being promoted to the top job, chief executive officer, in 1999.

When he started at Columbia Insurance Group, the company had 17 employees and about $3.5 million in revenue that year. As Wagner prepares for his retirement at the end of next year, those numbers have grown to 330 employees working in 19 states with annual revenues of $255 million.
“I never dreamed that I would be comfortable in an environment the size of Columbia,” he said. “I always assumed I would be in a larger metropolitan area. But it didn’t take long for this to feel like home, with great working conditions, a family atmosphere, and, of course, Columbia is just such a great place to raise children.”
Wagner was raised in Sullivan, a small town southwest of St. Louis, and joined the Army, where he reached the rank of captain and received the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star along with other decorations.
He married Brenda, a retired nurse, 44 years ago, and they have two grown children and three grandchildren.
“I was happy to become CEO, but I think I would have stayed and been very happy even if that had not happened,” he said. “This is just a great place to work.”
Wagner looks past his own experience with the company and seems just as proud of the nearly 100 years that preceded his arrival.

“We can trace our roots in Boone County back to 1874,” Wagner said. “The primary purpose at that point was insuring rural properties, farms, rural dwellings, things of that nature.”
Today, Columbia Insurance Group is a mutual regional property casualty insurance company that works primarily with small to mid-size business owners.
“The company really started to evolve in 1972,” Wagner said. “At that time, we broadened our portfolio to include liability coverage. It was a major change in the coverage that we offered.”
“In 1980 we began operations in Arkansas,” Wagner continued. “Shortly thereafter, we acquired a company in Nebraska and expanded into some other states, and it’s just been a continual growth pattern since then.”
Columbia Insurance Group’s main office is still in Columbia and shares space with its Columbia branch office, which services three states. Additional branch offices are located in Austin, Texas; Atlanta, Ga.; Omaha, Neb.; and Salina, Kan.
“Each of the five branch offices shapes their own product portfolios so they can meet local needs,” President Gary Thompson said.
Columbia Insurance Group recently purchased a 20-acre parcel of land on Gans Road next to the Regional Catholic School now under construction. The company, which has been located on Whitegate Drive for nearly 40 years, formed an internal group to plan the move to the site in south Columbia.
Thompson and Wagner agreed that the strength of the company stems largely from several qualities: a smaller size that allows greater responsiveness, a flattened hierarchal structure that facilitates decision making, a relaxed office atmosphere, consistency in what the company offers and in how it conducts itself, and the fact that the company is owned by its policy holders rather than shareholders.
“Because we are accountable to policy holders instead of shareholders, we can be more focused on the long term instead of short-term profits,” Wagner said.
The company sells its products solely through independent insurance agents, which Wagner and Thompson said allows them to provide the best service available to their policy holders.
“Our belief is that small-business owners, particularly, rely on a local advisor to assess their risk needs and to help them manage their risks.” Thompson said. Working with local, independent insurance agents makes them better able to meet the unique needs of different localities and customer categories, he said.
Wagner announced earlier this year that he would retire at the end of 2011. Thompson was named his successor.
“My goal was to leave the company better than I found it, and I think that I have,” Wagner said. “I would like to think that part of my legacy is in helping find a good successor. Gary is ready.”
Thompson said that there are things he wants to do but does not expect the company to make any 90-degree turns. He said he looks forward to continuing on the path he believes the company has been on from its beginning.
“I think our potential is virtually unlimited,”  Thompson said. “Our only real limit is our imagination.”