Obituary: Peter B. Lewis, Insurance Mogul and Princeton Patron

Peter B. Lewis, who built the Progressive Corporation into one of the nation’s biggest auto-insurance firms and gave hundreds of millions of dollars to education, cultural, and liberal causes, died Saturday at the age of 80 at his Florida home, reports The New York Times. The cause was a heart attack.

Mr. Lewis donated $220-million over the years to his alma mater, Princeton University, including a $101-million gift in 2006 to expand the institution’s creative and performing-arts activities. He signed the Giving Pledge in 2012.

A Democratic Party donor who has backed the American Civil Liberties Union and efforts to legalize marijuana, Mr. Lewis also clashed publicly with institutions he supported, including Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Foundation, over management and financial issues.