NC Commissioner of Insurance 2024

NC COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE

NOTE: You may vote for one. Candidates are presented below in the order they appear on your ballot.

Reason for my Endorsement: Phil Berger threatened and punished Causey. So Causey caved on his promise to citizens. Let’s try Marcus.

Natasha Marcus (Democrat)

https://natashamarcus.com/

https://www.facebook.com/NatashaMarcusNC/

Marcus lives in Davidson and is a former litigation attorney from Duke and earned her undergraduate degree in Public Policy. She is also a three-term State Senator, currently serving on the Senate Commerce & Insurance, Judiciary, Education, Budget and Election & Redistricting Committees. I very much favored her in 2018 when she first won her seat, a red-to blue flip that we helped celebrate.

I do tend to believe the rumor that Josh Stein recruited ex-Senator Marcus to run for Secretary of Insurance as a kind of consolation prize for her losing her Senate seat in SD 41, which was outrageously and deliberately gerrymandered away from her. She briefly considered moving into a new district to run for the Senate again (still, she persisted?).

Marcus believes her opponent has not served the people of North Carolina well and says:

— Her incumbent opponent has conflicting loyalties and political motivations with close ties to industry insiders and prioritization of companies over consumers. She says she will put consumer interests first.

–Maintains her opponent has has repeatedly allowed insurance companies to raise rates, allowing them to rack up excessive profits on the backs of North Carolinians. She notes he has approved 16 rate hikes in a row without holding a single public hearing , with no data to justify the increases, no testimony under oath, and no cross-examination.

— Pledges to advocate for North Carolina policyholders to receive the benefits they pay for and to have their claims paid fairly.

— Opposes a loophole she maintains allows insurance companies to charge policyholders up to 250% over the maximum allowed rate that now affects almost half of homeowners in North Carolina and significantly results in higher premiums. She says her opponent supports the loophole and has actually to expand it.

— Bemoans that North Carolina’s healthcare costs are now the highest in the nation and pledges to fight “to bring down prescription drug prices, ensure seniors can access affordable long-term care, and push back against healthcare monopolies that drive up costs.”

— Pledges to crackdown on insurance fraud which she says consumers $308.6 billion annually.

Even with her incumbent opponent’s problems with his own party and his slide into bad publicity about political corruption, Marcus will have a hard time beating him. Back in March, in the Republican primary for this office, against two competitors, her opponent still won 60% of the total primary vote.

Mike Causey (Republican)

https://mikecauseync.com/

https://www.facebook.com/MikeCauseyNC

Causey is from Guilford County and has served for 8 years as the state’s Insurance Commissioner. He studied engineering at Wake Tech, and served in the Army. After he worked in the construction industy, he was then recruited into the insurance industry field as an agency Manager and later as an lobbyist. Causey also has a degree in Business Insurance management.

As Commissioner, Causey says has worked with the state legislature to double the number of fraud and abuse investigators in the Department of Insurance, added additional fire department inspectors, and improved safety ratings of fire departments. Causey says he opposed rate hikes on homeowner’s insurance and car insurance and cracked down on insurance fraud. He supported efforts to pass Association Health Plans, which makes healthcare coverage more affordable and provides real competition in the marketplace, and cut bureaucracy and red tape, and held the insurance industry accountable.

Causey started off doing a good job. It took him five tries to finally win this office in 2016, and before his first term was up in 2020, he voluntarily and deliberately became something of a hero for anti-corruption — wearing a wire for the FBI and exposing a bribery scheme involving a billionaire insurance guy and Robin Hayes, at that time the chair of the NCGOP.

But by ratting out such big players in NCGOP politics, Causey quickly became an enemy of the power structure. Phil Berger, as one big example. “Reaganite” (on The Daily Haymaker) wrote:

“the corrupt deal that was pushed through the legislature this session allowed Blue Cross to raid its reserves and put the money in a new for-profit entity to the detriment of its policy holders. Boss Berger was one of the architects of this scam, and one can only speculate on what he got out of it, while Mike Causey loudly denounced this raid on Blue Cross’ policy holders. Causey stood up for the people of North Carolina while Berger was knifing them in the back to pander to a special interest, and Berger has not forgiven Causey for that.“

Berger made his displeasure further known by first taking away some of the Insurance Commissioner’s power and then stripping him of duties as the state’s Fire Marshal. Causey told the press he thought it was pure retaliation. Then he caved.

Unfortunately for his reputation as a Republican “maverick” and an honorable guy, Causey has now in his second term seemed to join the swamp he once disdained:

— Created a cadre of regional director positions, starting with three and expanding to nine, which he used to hire people with personal and political ties. One was Causey’s former 2016 campaign manager, who the department could not show did substantial work. Two had worked for his old boss, a former GOP NC governor.

–Placed directors in regional districts with boundaries he often shifted, sometimes to accommodate his hires. In one case, he split a coastal county in half, making two districts accessible to two district directors living in the same beach town.

–Moved three regional offices, previously opened by his predecessors to make department staff more accessible to North Carolinians, from cities to smaller communities. Visitor logs that “The News and Observer” reviewed show few people signing in.

–Hired a potential political rival who said he got paid but Causey’s department expected little work in return over years. Causey’s department recently fired the man for not working, five years into his tenure.

In January of this year, Causey’s newest hint of political louchness was headlined in the News and Observer, “Insurance Commissioner pays friend & donor a high wage to drive him on state business.” That friend and donor had donated at least $10,000 to Causey’s campaigns since 1995, and was Causey’s driver to and from his home to his office in Raleigh and around the state to various municipal fire departments to hand out checks. Trips like to one Santa Fe, which took three days on the road (one way!) and for which the friend was also paid $44 an hour for 8-hour do-nothing days while Causey attended a two-day conference.