Mike Causey, a 74-year-old Guilford County resident, ran his own insurance business before becoming the first Republican elected North Carolina Commissioner of Insurance in 2017. A graduate of High Point University, he previously worked in the North Carolina Department of Transportation as coordinator of the state’s Adopt-a-Highway program.
The job
The North Carolina Commissioner of Insurance oversees the regulation of the state’s insurance industry. In addition to ensuring that insurance companies comply with laws and regulations, the commissioner is tasked with investigating consumer complaints and allegations of fraud. The annual salary for the office is $146,421.
Our Q&A with Causey
Note: Causey’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for answers to the questions below. To provide information to readers, we have included comments he previously made at events and in interviews with other news outlets.
How would you work to bring down health insurance rates for North Carolinians?
Causey did not respond to this question, but he did answer a similar question in a recent interview with The News & Observer. Asked by the newspaper how the insurance commissioner should negotiate insurance rate increases, Causey said he had “represented consumers well and said ‘No’ to every rate hike request” during his time in office.
What’s the right level of regulation for an entity as large as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina?
Causey did not respond to this question, but he was a vocal opponent of House Bill 346. The bill, which passed last year with overwhelming support from legislators, gave Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina the ability to move tax-free capital it had amassed as a nonprofit to a newly created holding company.
“This is not Blue Cross’s money, this is the people’s money,” Causey said in April 2023. “Your mother, your grandmother, your family members, the mom and pop stores that pay all this money to Blue Cross, it’s their money.”
Do you feel that there needs to be more insurance competition in North Carolina?
Causey did not respond to this question, however he has been supportive of increased insurance competition in the past. In 2020, for example, he welcomed health insurer Centene’s move to the state, saying it would “bring more competition to help us drive down health insurance premiums.”
What would you do to crack down on insurance fraud committed by health care providers?
Causey did not respond to this question, however he did answer a similar question during a recent candidate forum.
“We have a criminal investigations team that’s one of the best in the country,” Causey said when asked what steps the Department of Insurance should take to prevent the fraudulent enrollment of people into health insurance plans without their knowledge. “We’re going after fraud every day. [We’ve] more than doubled, nearly tripled, the number of sworn law enforcement officers we have in the field fighting fraud.”
Fraud, he added, is a “never-ending problem,” and the department must “be very aggressive in pushing this back to protect consumers, especially our seniors.”
What would you do to crack down on false advertising in the insurance industry?
Causey did not respond to this question, but his office has issued warnings about deceptive ad campaigns targeting social media users.