Robert Brawley, a former state legislator who ran for governor in 2016, has filed to run for insurance commissioner in 2024.
Brawley, a Republican from Mooresville, also ran for insurance commissioner in 2004.
“I’ve been an insurance agent all my life, and I know the department was set up to be a balance between consumer interests and industry interests. And basically it looks like to me that the department is going overboard on the industry side of the equation,” said Brawley in an interview. “I think I can do the job that helps both the consumer and the industry.”
Brawley would have to win a Republican runoff against Mike Causey, who was elected as insurance commissioner in 2016 and re-elected in 2020. Causey was the first Republican insurance commissioner in state history and is running for re-election. A spokesman for the incumbent told NC Tribune that the insurance commissioner will make a formal announcement later this month.
Brawley is no stranger to the role and responsibility of regulating the insurance industry. In 2016, he sent a letter to then-commissioner Wayne Goodwin expressing his frustration with the Department of Insurance’s failure to act to shut down a surety insurer that Brawley invested in. Causey defeated Goodwin, a Democrat in both 2016 and 2020.
Brawley, 79, served in the N.C. House of Representatives from 1981 to 1999 and again from 2013 to 2015. He resigned as chairman of the House finance committee during his second stint after getting into a disagreement with then-speaker Thom Tillis.
He argues that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with how the industry is regulated and how the insurance department operates.
Brawley says North Carolina auto rates have risen since 2019 from fourth lowest in the nation to 19th lowest. He also says many consumers think they are protected by rate bureau rates and do not realize they have consented to rate hikes.
“There seems to be issues with consumer complaints where the NCDOI sends the complaint to the company and when receiving response, then NCDOI sends the response to the consumer with little to no change,” says Brawley.
He also believes that Insurance Department offices across the state don’t serve any purpose. He says he’s willing to listen to those who disagree with him.
“You don’t learn anything if you don’t listen to what the other person has to say,” said Brawley. “If you talk to my wife, she will say I just like to argue. I enjoy, unlike most politicians, the exchange. You never know when you’re going to learn something.”
Unlike banking and financial services, the insurance industry is regulated on a state-by-state basis with no federal regulation, making the insurance commissioner’s role across the country the only way that consumers can file complaints. Insurance commissioners also review and approve insurance company rate requests.
North Carolina ranks 12th in the country in terms of the size of its insurance market, with $70.3 billion in premiums written in 2021, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The N.C. Department of Insurance has an annual budget of more than $50 million.
Chris Roush is executive editor of Business North Carolina. He can be reached at croush@businessnc.com.