Longtime Veteran of the Massachusetts Insurance Industry
Peter Thomson Robertson, who lived in the Auburndale village in the city of Newton, MA for more than 45 years with his wife Cathryn “Cathie” Seibert Robertson of 54 years (she died in May 2023) passed away on Saturday, February 22, 2025. Peter is survived by his sister-in-law Victoria Robertson of the District of Columbia, his sister Margaret (Mardi) LaForce of Cincinnati, his sister Hope Robertson of Boulder, his brother George Robertson of Seattle, his brother-in-law Gordon Seibert of Holladay, Utah and his brother-in-law Richard LaForce of Cincinnati, his niece Celeste Marokus of Ashland, Oregon and many other nieces and nephews and numerous great nieces and grand-nephews. Peter’s older brothers Reuben B. Robertson, III and Daniel Huger Robertson pre-deceased him.
Peter grew up outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, the third son of Reuben B. Robertson, Jr. and Margaret (Peggy) Watkins Robertson. After high school, Peter acquired a BA in history from the University of Virginia and then obtained a law school degree from Boston College Law School. He spent the early years of his practice working as a general counsel lawyer for Massachusetts regulatory agencies.
After leaving the state Division of Insurance, Peter built an insurance regulatory practice involving representation of clients on complicated Massachusetts insurance issues. Peter also served as a director on several insurance companies, including becoming a founding director of what has become one of the largest medical malpractice insurance companies in the United States.
Peter and Cathie enormously enjoyed traveling throughout Europe and especially in Central America and the Caribbean.
In recent years, they traveled all over Belize, hiking and snorkeling everywhere in the country. They also went all around Italy, and they spent a lot of time with their friends the Franca and Beppino Burgissers at their villa in central Tuscany. Other favorite places were St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands.
Peter spent the last five years doing research and writing about the illustrious and accomplished lives and careers of his great-grandfather Peter G. Thomson (for whom he was named), his grandfather Reuben B. Robertson, Sr., who ran Champion International Company’s operations in North Carolina for almost 40 years and assumed the presidency of the company in the late 1940s, and Peter’s father Reuben B. Robertson, Jr., who succeeded his father in 1950. Peter’s father took off almost two years as president of the family company to serve as the Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Dwight Eisenhower between 1955 and 1957, before resuming the role as Champion’s president until he was killed by a drunk driver in 1960. Many of Peter’s pieces about his great-grandfather and his grandfather were published in the Waynesville, North Carolina newspaper known as The Mountaineer. Peter considered the many pieces about his illustrious family members and the many other stories he wrote about other family stories the highlight of his career.
