Candidates promote insurance backgrounds

OLYMPIA – If you want someone to regulate insurance companies, it makes sense to get someone with plenty of insurance experience.

That’s the argument made by three Republicans who are facing off in the September primary for the right to run against incumbent Mike Kreidler, a Democrat. Kreidler was an optometrist, banker and printer before going into politics. His two-term predecessor, Deborah Senn, is a lawyer.

“To have somebody in the insurance commissioner’s office with actual insurance experience would be a novelty,” said Earl Dennis, an Edmonds insurance agent running for commissioner.

He and the other two Republican candidates say that the state agency has become inefficient, hurting consumers, largely because Kreidler and other agency leaders have little experience within the industry.

“When you want a surgeon general of the United States, you don’t go get an auto mechanic. You put in someone who knows something about it,” said candidate John Adams, a Kirkland insurance broker. “We know where to look.”

Kreidler is unopposed in the Sept. 14 primary, as is Libertarian candidate Stephen Steele. Here are the three Republicans:

“Curt Fackler, 48, is a Spokane business owner with an insurance and finance background. He ran for insurance commissioner four years ago, but lost in the primary.

“The big key is to let people know that the office isn’t running really well,” he said. The agency isn’t very “business-friendly,” he said, taking much longer than other states to approve health savings accounts or other new insurance products.

Like the other two Republicans, Fackler criticizes Kreidler for making Premera Blue Cross spend tens of millions of dollars on state-ordered experts when Premera wanted to convert from nonprofit to a publicly traded for-profit corporation. Fackler agrees with Kreidler’s decision not to allow the switch, but says there was no need to make the company spend so much.

To make health insurance cheaper, Fackler wants to trim many of the mandatory services that must now be covered. He would also require proof of auto insurance when drivers renew their license plate tabs.

He would ban insurers from using a person’s credit history to set insurance rates – a widespread industry practice that Kreidler limited, but didn’t halt.

“John Adams, 64, is a Kirkland insurance broker who’s specialized in policies covering ships, cargo, salvage operations and pollution liability.

“I’m running because I think the state of Washington can do a lot better,” he said. Kreidler and Senn both tended to act as consumer advocates in specialized areas, like health insurance, he said.

“Which is fine, I don’t oppose that,” he said. “But the job is much broader than that.”

Many insurance companies want to modernize their policies, rates and products, he said, but winning approval from the state “is just glacial.” The result is that people in other states have a lot more options than Washingtonians do, he said.

“I seek to make the office more efficient, with the experience and understanding that comes from working in this business for 34 years,” he said.

He, too, criticized Kreidler for costing Premera so much before rejecting the company’s request.

“What do you do with $22 million in outside experts and attorneys? Come on. There’s only so many books to look at,” he said.

“Earl Dennis, 53, lives in Edmonds. He’s been an insurance agent for 21 years.

Like Fackler, he would ban the use of “credit scores” for insurance customers. It’s not fair to raise a person’s rates, he said, simply because they’ve had trouble paying bills in the past.

“Should somebody pay 49 cents for 29-cent bananas just because their credit’s bad?” he said.

Instead of lawsuits, he’d like the state to set up a system of “arbitration committees” to weed out frivolous claims and determine compensation for damages.

“I like to be common-sense,” he said. “I represent people. Not parties, not political philosophies.”

He would strip away some of the state-mandated coverage in health plans so that more people could afford coverage, he said. The large number of uninsured people in Washington is driving up prices for everyone, he said, because doctors pass those unreimbursed costs on to their insured customers.

“Everything that’s being done is not enough,” he said.