Candidate Questionnaire: Wayne Goodwin, candidate for North Carolina Commissioner of Insurance

Assistant Commissioner of Insurance and former state representative Wayne Goodwin is seeking our endorsement in the Democratic primary for Commissioner of Insurance. Below are his answers to our candidate questionnaire, with our questions in bold.

For more about Wayne's campaign, visit his website.

1. Why are you running?

In short, I am running to continue the consumer advocacy that has been the hallmark of Insurance Commissioner Jim Long’s 24 years in this position.

When I learned on very short notice that Commissioner Long had chosen not to run for re-election after all, I decided that it was vital that someone with my background, qualifications, and personal philosophy sought to succeed him. (See my answer to Question 5, below.) Also, just as many others have expressed since February 29th (the date that Commissioner Long decided not to run), there are grave concerns that the insurance industry is salivating over the prospect of taking the post of Insurance Commissioner this election. In fact, the insurance industry has two candidates running against me in this race: First, the other Democrat is a long-time employee of and attorney for the health insurance industry (he’s now the President-elect of the Health Insurance Underwriters Association of NC), while the Republican is taking marching orders from a perennial opponent of Jim Long’s. I am running because of my being the only person presently able to fend off those two candidates and stand up for keeping the Insurance Commissioner’s post one that is principally about consumer protection. I’m running to keep it the Department of Insurance, and not make it the Department for Insurance.

As for specific goals, I have pledged the following to North Carolina citizens:

I pledge to keep forever focused on the dual commitment of a Commissioner of Insurance: recognizing the need for low, fair and reasonable insurance rates for consumers and businesses alike, and the necessity of a competitive insurance market in North Carolina;

I pledge to be an impartial and hard-working member of the Council of State, fully committed to the duties of Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal;

I pledge to continue giving firefighters and all first responders a stronger voice in State government;

I pledge to strongly support the mission of the Safe Kids program, promoting safety in the home, on the road, at school, and in the community at large;

I pledge to continue to support the Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program’s (SHIIP) mission to provide Medicare education in all 100 counties; and,

I pledge to protect the public and businesses by fighting insurance fraud, and including cracking down on unlawful harassment by collection agencies (another group the Insurance Commissioner regulates) of folks harmed by the home mortgage insurance crisis, etc.

2. What are the three most significant ways you would use the office of Insurance Commissioner to improve the lives of the people of North Carolina?

• To always strive for low, reasonable and fair insurance rates – and keeping a strong check and balance on the regular attempts by the insurance industry to raise rates unnecessarily, an act by the insurance industry which hurts working families and average North Carolinians rather harshly in the pocketbook. This mission has a corollary: It also helps the consumer for the Insurance Commissioner to strive for a competitive insurance market in North Carolina. A competitive market gives consumers a choice, and that often translates into discounts on insurance rates. (By the way, in the last 2 years I have already helped beat back attempts by the insurance industry and a couple of legislators to strip the Insurance Commissioner of his authority to be a strong consumer advocate in regulation of insurance rates. As the only candidate who can continue to do so, it would certainly improve the lives of North Carolinians to fend off future attempts to weaken the office.) This goal affects the lives of every person in North Carolina.
  
  
• To promote further expansion and scope of the Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP) that is within the Department of Insurance. SHIIP relies on a small staff of State employees and 900+ volunteers across North Carolina, touching every county. As more and more Tar Heels must navigate the maze that is the federal government’s Medicare Part D, it is vital that SHIIP be there to provide expert guidance on how to choose the very best prescription drug plan for each senior citizen. This goal affects the lives of every senior citizen (and his or her adult children) in North Carolina.
  
  
• To advocate every day – as State Fire Marshal, a role the Insurance Commissioner also has – for ways to protect, promote, and sustain our volunteer fire departments and rescue/EMS services in the State. Work of the Insurance Commissioner ensures grant funds annually to most of the 1,500 departments; these grant funds help pay for costly rescue equipment and supplies. Because departments are rated according to their equipment and response times, etc., the continued provision of these grants from the Insurance Commissioner ensures both that the departments are rated well and – to the surprise of most people – a connection to keeping homeowners’ insurance rates low! (The insurance industry determines the homeowners’ insurance rates for a community based, in part, on the fire district within which a person lives.) This goal affects the lives of every person in North Carolina because every community relies upon first responders and public emergency services workers.

3. Why should voters in western North Carolina support your candidacy?

There are several reasons why voters in western NC should support my candidacy.

First, as Assistant Commissioner of Insurance over the last three years, I have supervised the Western Regional Office (WRO) of the Department of Insurance, located in Asheville. That means I had a direct role in the provision of services to approximately 31 counties in western NC. I am the only Insurance Commissioner candidate who has that credential.

Second, for many years – as Assistant Commissioner of Insurance, as Chairman of the Platform and Resolutions Committee of the NC Democratic Party, as State Representative in the North Carolina General Assembly, et al. – I have regularly worked with and spent time with voters in western North Carolina. I assure you that I am the only candidate who has visited every county in western North Carolina and do so regularly. Just recently I met with voters west of Murphy, North Carolina (yes, to the surprise of folks in eastern NC there is a small area actually west of Murphy) immediately adjacent to the NC-TN state line in Cherokee County. We need an Insurance Commissioner who, like me, recognizes and respects the fact that western NC extends well beyond Hickory and Asheville, and has a track record of working with western North Carolina leaders in solving problems. (I have done so as Assistant Insurance Commissioner and as a state legislator.)

Third, legislators and leading local officials in western North Carolina have endorsed my campaign for Insurance Commissioner. They include Sen. Martin Nesbitt, Rep. Bobby England, Register of Deeds Otto DeBruhl, et al. Those endorsements and relationships will prove vital to western NC if I am elected Insurance Commissioner because they will help me best represent you.

Fourth, though all three candidates for Insurance Commissioner originally hailed from a small town, I am the only candidate who still lives in a small town in rural North Carolina. (Go to www.waynegoodwin.org for details.) The other candidates live in Durham and Raleigh, respectively. With much of western NC considered rural in nature, I am the only candidate who best understands your concerns.

4. Often members of the council of state can exert their influence to pass legislation affecting their office or the areas they regulate. What legislation would you most like to see passed regarding insurance in this state? What would you like to see the Insurance Commissioner be able to do that he can't do now?

I would support legislation that makes health insurance more accessible and more affordable for North Carolinians. We’ve made some strides in the State already (most recently with our work on the High Risk Insurance Pool in 2006-2007), but we obviously need to do more.

As for doing something that he cannot do now, the Insurance Commissioner already has rather broad authority. I will need to continue my conversations with the citizens of North Carolina and with my current colleagues in the Department of Insurance to determine what new duties I would propose, if any.

5. What about your background and experience makes you qualified to be a candidate and to serve?

First of all, unlike anyone else in the race for Insurance Commissioner, I have already been a regulator of the insurance industry for North Carolina: I have served as Assistant Commissioner of Insurance for the State for the last 3 years. In that position I have held hearings, written administrative orders, handled complaints against both insurance companies and agents, and resolved a multitude of matters for consumers in most counties. Working alongside long-time Insurance Commissioner Jim Long – one of the strongest consumer advocates that Tar Heels have ever seen – I have learned firsthand what a regulator is to do.

My other duties as Assistant Insurance Commissioner have been to advise and counsel the Commissioner on legislative, political and administrative matters; draft legislation; consult with technical experts regarding insurance matters; negotiate agreements; manage 40% of the Department myself with approximately 125 of 405 Dept of Insurance employees reporting directly to me; and overseeing the Office of State Fire Marshal, the DOI Eastern Regional Office in New Bern, and the DOI Western Regional Office in Asheville.

Additional primary qualifications include: My eight years of elected service as State Representative, where I regularly worked on insurance-related legislation and stood up for consumers and a competitive insurance market; as well as my 13+ years working as an attorney in private practice representing individuals, working families, and small businesses who had been erroneously denied service or coverage by insurance companies. Furthermore, I also worked for a time as the Assistant General Counsel for the Department of Insurance. (Coincidentally, in that role several years ago I issued a seminal order against a client of one of my primary opponent.)

In sum, I am the only candidate in this race to have experience as an insurance regulator, and certainly the only one to have qualifications that are tempered by having served in State public office and in private legal practice. Unlike others in this race, I have not and do not work for the insurance industry but have a balanced view that more than anything will always defer to the public interest and the consumer.

6. Would you call yourself a progressive?

I call myself a progressive because of certain vibrant areas within my own personal political canon. Among them are: electoral reform, campaign finance reform, environmental conservation, pollution control, universal health care, social justice, affordable housing, a viable Social Security system, renewable energy, “smart growth” urban development, a living wage, safe workplaces, and pro-union policies. I also believe that there should be effective regulation of certain types of corporations, especially those that have almost a monopolistic stranglehold over citizens. My legislative record over eight years and the product of my chairing the Platform and Resolutions Committee of the NC Democratic Party strongly underscore my identification as a progressive.