Latest / The SEANC View / A conversation with Commissioner of Insurance Mike Causey

Transcript

A conversation with Commissioner of Insurance Mike Causey · The SEANC View

0:00
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
0:04
I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, the communications director here at Scenic,
0:08
alongside executive director Artis Watkins, government relations director Suzanne
0:13
Beasley, and podcast producer Sam Klein. How is everyone doing today?
0:17
Good. Good. Let's have a great show.
0:22
Music.
0:31
All right. If you're listening to this, it means you may be on vacation,
0:35
actually. You may be on your beach week for the 4th of July.
0:39
Don't forget the sunscreen.
0:42
Or you're bored. Or you're bored. Or you're driving to your destination.
0:45
Yeah. Or you just want to know a lot about state employment.
0:49
That's right. And that's why we're here. Today is Wednesday,
0:52
July 2nd, and it is still hot outside.
0:57
Today will be my grandpa's birthday. He'd be like 126. Wow.
1:03
Okay. Shout out to John's grandpa. But yeah, I just thought of that because he's July 2nd.
1:09
So July 4th is coming up. Y'all have any plans?
1:14
It's on a Friday this year. I think that works out well. To stay cool.
1:18
Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to take an extra day off to, because it's on a Friday,
1:23
right? It's a long weekend. It's a long weekend.
1:26
Yeah. This week, we're joined by another big-time guest and Commissioner of
1:30
Insurance, Mike Causey, who's dropping by a little later in the show to talk
1:35
about some things going on at his office.
1:37
But for now, we'll just jump right in with our usual budget talk. Nothing's happening.
1:43
Yeah. The legislature is, you know, I told you guys last week that they're going
1:48
to recess and take a break.
1:50
Chatter is coming back in October maybe for a budget. They have to come back
1:54
periodically while they're still technically in session because they have to meet every so often.
1:59
But those, you know, so far, they're skeletal sessions.
2:02
Anything can change. There's a lot going on right now. Yes. With that in mind,
2:05
I did hear today the Tim Boyum podcast with he had Colin Campbell and Lucille from Axios.
2:13
And they were talking about the big, beautiful bill working through Congress
2:17
right now and how that's probably going to prompt the state government to kind of force them to come.
2:23
To deal with this, right? Because they're going to have to work on the Medicaid
2:26
part, especially, right?
2:28
Oh, there's so many aspects of it that affect the government.
2:31
And that's why we've been saying on this podcast and we've said to legislative
2:34
leadership, we didn't see how they were going to get a budget done until they
2:37
really knew what was going to come down from Washington. So now we have a better picture.
2:42
Yeah. And that's going to mean less revenue for all the states.
2:47
There's no way around that.
2:48
And states have to figure out how to prioritize what's left and what they can cut.
2:52
So it seems like, to me, I haven't really studied the BBB, Big Beautiful Bill,
2:58
but it seems like a lot of the cuts are pushed out beyond 2026 midterms, though.
3:05
So maybe they wouldn't deal with them this year, but it's a two-year budget,
3:09
so I guess they'd have to at least have an idea of what they're going to cut.
3:12
Oh, I think they definitely have to, because I don't think they're going to
3:15
abandon the idea to continue cutting the personal income tax rate.
3:19
And so if you're not and you know you're bringing in less, you've got to go
3:22
ahead and start slamming the brakes.
3:24
So I don't know, you know, I don't know what they're going to do.
3:26
And I wouldn't want to have to deal with this, to be clear.
3:28
For budget writers, it's a huge job.
3:31
It's a very tough job. And you do have to pick winners and losers.
3:34
And so it is incumbent upon us and upon our members to call and make the case
3:40
for why the public services they provide or provided, if they're retired.
3:44
Need to be there for the public and how it's benefiting not just the citizens
3:48
themselves, but even the businesses you want to continue to attract to keep going.
3:53
Your economic growth chugging along despite some pretty draconian stuff.
3:57
It really seems like their job has gotten a whole lot harder this week.
4:01
It did. Than it was, yeah.
4:03
But Senator Berger publicly came out, said it's a great bill,
4:06
and Speaker Hall has been very supportive of President Trump and his efforts.
4:11
So I feel like they're okay with the concept, but I don't know how they're going
4:15
to deal with the slack of money. Surely they must have something that they're
4:17
already thinking about, though, because, I mean. They must, yeah. The BBB.
4:21
Yeah. It's not new. I mean, they knew this was coming. So surely they've got
4:25
something already in mind, maybe some framework laid out for what their budget
4:30
is going to look like. But yeah.
4:31
I did see a lot of comments on the Facebook video that was Suzanne speaking
4:36
that had a lot of people who were very upset that they're leaving without a budget.
4:41
And they're like, you get to go on vacation while we still have nothing.
4:45
We don't know what's happening. do get mad at that.
4:48
And as lobbyists, though, we would rather them take the time and get it right than rush it through.
4:55
So really, I don't think they were just trying to go take a vacation by any
4:59
means. I think they're all still plugging away.
5:02
But yeah, you're right. That's the way the public looks at it.
5:06
And in all honesty, without actually saying it out loud, they may have just
5:10
been waiting to see what happens with this bill, too.
5:12
I feel sure. I mean, I want to I think they have to put together a budget with
5:16
this coming down the pipe, you know?
5:18
So, as always, stay tuned on the budget. So, you got to visit the governor's
5:23
mansion yesterday, Artis.
5:25
Yes. It was for the signing of Senate Bill 124, which is a bill concerned with
5:31
hiring and modernization of the State Human Resources Department, right?
5:36
Right. So Stacey Meyer, the director of the Office of State Human Resources,
5:40
and her team had pushed through legislation this year, and it was very well
5:44
received, I think unanimously on the Senate side, at least.
5:47
I don't know about the House side. That would, when we say modernize it,
5:50
it shortens the time it's going to take to hire a state employee.
5:53
We've talked about that a few times on this podcast. It was...
5:56
Like six months. Yeah, 182 days. Yeah, from somebody putting an application
6:02
in and us telling them whether they got the job.
6:04
Nobody's going to be waiting around for that. This would address that.
6:06
It would relax degree requirements on state jobs where it's appropriate.
6:11
I mean, if somebody's going to be a medical doctor, they still have to be an MD.
6:14
But where it's appropriate, it's relaxing some degree requirements,
6:17
doing anything they can to try to address the vacancy rate, but to make state
6:21
government run more efficiently from an HR perspective.
6:24
They did a tremendous amount of work around this.
6:27
And I know Suzanne and her team supported them in that effort.
6:29
So we were invited to the mansion for the signing.
6:32
We were very appreciative to be included. Our president, Kirk Montgomery,
6:36
was able to attend with us. That was an honor to be involved in that.
6:40
Yeah. And it looked like it was a bipartisan effort. It was.
6:43
It was. It's a good build.
6:44
Stacey Meyer's staff is awesome. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Wesley
6:48
Davis. He's a huge help. He's a future star.
6:51
Yes, he is. So yeah, they're good people over there. All right.
6:55
Well, I guess we'll wrap up our witty banter on the week and get to our interview
7:00
with Commissioner of Insurance, Mike Causey. Hope you enjoy.
7:04
Music.
7:12
Our guest this week is the Commissioner of Insurance, Mike Causey.
7:16
Welcome to the podcast studio.
7:19
Thank you. Glad to be here. Mike is a two-time Impact endorsed candidate,
7:23
right? Correct. Oh, they love Commissioner Causey at Impact.
7:26
He's a frequent guest at our convention. I've seen him there several times,
7:29
and so we're happy to have him here.
7:31
And you do right by your state employees, and we really appreciate that.
7:34
Thank you. That's what it's all about.
7:36
Yeah, because they're providing the services.
7:39
Yeah, so I guess we can kind of start there, you know, budget-wise.
7:42
I know the proposals have had cuts for every agency, I think about 20%,
7:47
and they're kind of leaving it up to the agencies is what we understand to decide
7:51
where you're going to make those cuts to meet that budget.
7:53
And there obviously are some position cuts in there. How are you looking at this in your agency?
7:59
Well, one of the things that I've tried my best to get the legislators to understand
8:05
is that we're different than other state agencies in that the Department of
8:10
Insurance is a totally self-funded agency.
8:12
We totally get all of our funds either from what's called an insurance regulatory fund.
8:19
When you pay your insurance premiums, every dollar you pay, there's a state
8:25
premium tax of two and a half percent that comes to the state.
8:28
We get that, process that, and the legislature decades ago passed legislation
8:35
to fund the Department of Insurance to make it a self-funded agency by letting
8:41
us keep a small percentage.
8:44
Of that state premium tax. And we also were getting about $12 million in federal funding.
8:51
We don't know where that's going to go, but that's what we had been.
8:54
And so when the budget proposal came out from the Senate this year,
8:59
I was totally shocked because it was going to decimate a program that we have
9:05
called the Seniors Health Insurance Information Program, or SHIP.
9:10
Very important. which had been around since 1986.
9:13
Commissioner Jim Long had started that. We were one of the first states in the
9:18
country to implement the SHIP program.
9:20
And since 1986, that program's helped over 3 million people in North Carolina.
9:26
And it's not all seniors, but it's primarily seniors and anybody that's on Medicare,
9:31
which includes about 268,000 disabled folks that are dependent on Medicare.
9:39
And those, we call them counselors, and they're certified. They have to go through substantial training.
9:45
We have 26 people in the SHIP area.
9:49
Melinda Mundin is the division head there. There was 11 of those positions that
9:54
we fund at the state level, and the others are federally funded.
9:58
Earlier this year, we heard proposals from the federal government that they
10:03
were going to stop their funding of the SHIP program. So I wrote letters to
10:07
Congress to say, you know, we need to take another look.
10:11
You don't need to cut the funding for a program like this because we helped so many.
10:16
Just last year, we helped over
10:18
70,000 people that really needed help with Medicare or insurance issues.
10:23
It is so complicated now. I don't care what your age is, but for seniors,
10:27
it can be a really difficult thing.
10:29
Well, you know, you see the ads, it's called medicare advantage
10:33
well there's over 163 different
10:37
medicare advantage plans and nobody even if you're an insurance expert you couldn't
10:42
review that number of plans yeah i know there's even some confusion with humana
10:46
from the state health plan and humana who also offers other right medicare advantage
10:51
plans and then the prescription drug plans 16 different choices there,
10:57
and over 45 companies that write Medicare supplement policies. So it's.
11:03
Easy to see where people can get confused. And the SHIP program, we have volunteers.
11:10
We have over 800 volunteers spread out across 100 counties. And these folks
11:15
in all of our senior centers, we have certified SHIP counselors.
11:20
Some are working for the counties or the cities, but they all are under the
11:26
umbrella of our program.
11:27
And it's been working very, very well. And I was so shocked to see when that
11:34
Senate budget came out, they wanted to eliminate all the state funded positions
11:40
and they wanted us to cut.
11:42
They had the positions identified, 19 total positions.
11:47
And I'm going back to say, wait a minute, we don't need positions cut.
11:52
We need positions added because we don't have enough folks now.
11:56
And the House did not have those same cuts to the SHIP program, thank goodness.
12:03
But the point I was trying to get across, and I don't know if I've done any
12:07
real good of getting that point across, it doesn't matter how many positions
12:13
the legislature cuts from the Department of Insurance.
12:16
It's zero help to their budget because we're a self-funded agent. Right. Yeah.
12:21
You know, you see things like that. You've been around the General Assembly
12:24
for years. We've walked those halls together for many decades.
12:28
We see these things happen that don't make any sense. In this case,
12:31
what do you think the hangup is? Does somebody truly not get it that it doesn't save any money?
12:36
Obviously, somebody doesn't get it.
12:39
But maybe they're looking at the overall economy and the state of affairs in
12:44
North Carolina and say, wait a minute, we've got to cut state employees.
12:48
You know, when I was elected, I was working for the Department of Transportation.
12:51
And if you look at the position cuts there over the last 30 years,
12:56
I may be wrong, but I believe at one time the Department of Transportation had
13:01
the most state employees of...
13:03
Oh, it was a behemoth, and it was cut by both parties over the years.
13:07
And they just kept cutting and cutting.
13:09
And I know when I was there, the trend was going to hire private contractors.
13:14
And I heard the message, well, this will save money.
13:17
Well, I will tell you, I've talked to folks, some of the engineers that I've
13:22
worked with in the roadside environmental unit in the Division of Highways,
13:26
and we had engineers there, if something came in on a project,
13:31
they could turn that around in a matter of sometimes one or two hours,
13:36
and when they got rid of those engineers and hired the private contractors,
13:41
they could turn that around in a matter of sometimes one or two hours.
13:41
It went from a couple hours to months because they're getting paid for the amount of time.
13:49
There's a disincentive to save the public money. It's very expensive.
13:52
And the contractors could almost charge what they want to charge and get paid for it. Yeah.
13:58
I know the argument was, well, we're saving the future retirement and this, that, and the other.
14:04
I'm not trying to get off the subject, but that was just one of those.
14:08
That's right, Levin. You're bringing your experiences professionally to the
14:12
table as commissioner, and I respect that.
14:15
So with the SHIP program, though, and like you were saying, is it 800 volunteers?
14:20
We have over 800 volunteers. At one time, we had almost 1,000.
14:25
As you know, over the last 10 or 15 years, it's been harder and harder for the
14:30
younger generation to see fit to volunteer for fire departments or civic organizations
14:37
or whatever. Well, thank you.
14:39
Anybody listening that happens to be one of those volunteers with SHIP,
14:42
thank you, because that's a very vital public service.
14:46
You're right. We really appreciate all they do to help people.
14:50
And the state employees that we have, we have a regional office in Columbus
14:55
County in Whitehall, and we have two SHIP employees there.
14:58
And those two ladies...
15:00
Are on the phone constantly with people calling and sometimes people coming
15:05
in to visit with them personally.
15:08
And I can't tell you how many phone calls and emails I've received thanking
15:13
us for what we've done to help people save money and not be steered or scammed.
15:20
Yeah, I can say from personal experience, I took my dad to the doctor yesterday
15:25
and we drove to Fayetteville and it's like an hour long drive.
15:28
And he got calls constantly from
15:31
companies wanting to sell him Medicaid Advantage plans and scam things.
15:36
So it's great that somebody's out there working with older folks.
15:40
Well, you're right. Well, you don't have to be a senior.
15:42
Almost anybody gets scam text messages every day on your cell phones.
15:46
If you've still got a landline, you'll get messages on that machine.
15:51
I mean, I have trouble deciding what's a scam and what's not.
15:55
I just always lean towards the safe side and don't click any links.
15:58
I don't mean to dwell on this, but I just got hit between the eyes today with
16:03
something that I didn't realize.
16:06
When this proposed budget came out of the Senate and we were being told by both
16:11
the House and the Senate, you're going to have to cut some positions.
16:14
The Senate had actually identified the positions we had to cut,
16:18
which we strongly disagreed with because of some of our actuarial and most critical positions.
16:25
And the House is saying, well, you're still going to have to cut,
16:28
but you'll be able to identify those positions.
16:32
So a few weeks ago when I was meeting with our chief operating officer,
16:37
my chief deputy and the HR folks, and everybody's telling me,
16:41
you know, Commissioner,
16:43
if we're going to have these cuts, we'd be better off to identify those.
16:48
I said, maybe we should take some of these positions and freeze them.
16:53
Yeah. And I reluctantly said, well, I guess so.
16:57
Last week, I made an executive decision. I went to HR and I said,
17:01
I'm unfreezing all these positions and we're going to post them because I need
17:05
to fill them. We need the people.
17:07
Well, I found out that we have a statute that says if those positions have been
17:13
frozen, you can't fill them and you can't post it.
17:16
I was shown a letter today dated June 30th that came from the state OSHR with
17:23
the legislation that was passed and said that I had also submitted some in-range
17:29
pay increases for younger actuaries that were really underpaid.
17:35
And this request had been submitted early in the year and hadn't gone anywhere.
17:40
So I went to HR and said, we need to move on this.
17:43
And then I found out that there was legislation put in place this year that
17:48
barred any in-range adjustments at all from any agency until the budgets settle.
17:55
And this really hamstrings any agency head in running their agency.
18:02
And it's just real bothersome when you see that. Well, can you tell anybody
18:07
listening how that affects?
18:09
I mean, I know people talk all the time they don't trust insurance companies.
18:12
And y'all, those are partners to you. You have to work with insurance companies
18:16
because you are the person with your staff making sure all of us are getting
18:20
fair rates and fair treatment when we deal with an insurance company.
18:24
So you have to have qualified folks, I would assume.
18:26
How would cuts affect any of us as consumers?
18:30
It could very well translate to higher insurance rates because the actuarial
18:36
division, these are what I call the brains of the outfit.
18:39
If you're an actuary, you can make a ton of money in the private sector,
18:44
and it is extremely difficult to recruit actuaries on the state pay scale.
18:50
So we've been fortunate to recruit some younger ones out of college,
18:55
and they're not paid nearly what they would be in the private sector.
19:00
Right. They take less pay and hope for security and benefits.
19:03
And then when we're trying to retain those employees with an in-range adjustment
19:09
to be hamstrung by that type of legislation is very harmful,
19:14
not only to the agency, but it's harmful to the consumer because the insurance
19:20
companies have lots of actuaries and lots of attorneys and people figuring out how to raise our rates.
19:28
We have to be able to have enough intelligent people to say,
19:33
no, their numbers are not right.
19:35
And I think the public usually doesn't understand that. If you ask somebody
19:38
about a state employee, they think.
19:40
Some bureaucrat we really don't need, they don't think, ooh,
19:43
that's the person making sure my rates don't go up.
19:46
Now, you're in a political world. You have to run for this job every four years,
19:50
and you've done quite well at that.
19:52
People have made challenges to you from every which direction,
19:55
and the public has shown their faith in you.
19:57
When you sit down with these insurance companies, it seems to me you had some
20:01
pretty impressive results.
20:02
Didn't they want increases over 20-some percent, and you got them down to five?
20:07
Correct. Like an automobile insurance, they filed the rate filing the first
20:12
of this year, and they wanted almost 23%. That was average.
20:16
Some areas of the state was above that.
20:19
And that's a pretty significant increase.
20:23
And so when I said no, we have a process we're required to follow by state statute.
20:29
And if the commissioner has to pick one of two words, yes or no.
20:32
And I've always said no, not just because I wanted to say no,
20:36
but because the numbers that I've seen coming from the insurance industry and
20:41
my judgment has been higher than absolutely necessary and unfairly discriminatory
20:48
to certain parts of the state.
20:50
So when they filed that almost 23 percent, it was 22 point something on automobile insurance.
20:57
When I said no, when you say no, you have to go to court.
21:01
So we scheduled a court date for September of this year, and then the rate bureau
21:07
representing the insurance companies came back to me and said, look,
21:11
we got a lot of pressure on us with all the accidents that are happening and
21:16
the claims that are being paid out. We would really consider...
21:20
Negotiating a settlement. So I entered into negotiations and it was pretty intense
21:25
for a couple of months. And we ended up with what I think was very fair to the
21:30
consumer at average 5% across the state.
21:33
And again, a little bit higher in some of our bigger cities and lower in other areas.
21:39
But most of the consumers I've talked with said, yeah, they could live with
21:43
that 5%, but 20-some percent would be really tough on it.
21:48
Yeah. So, Commissioner Causey, how do you think, well, obviously,
21:51
Hurricane Helene was a huge devastation, and it was obviously a devastation
21:56
for insurance companies, too.
21:58
How do you think that will impact rates going into the future?
22:01
Well, the Helene wasn't as devastating to insurance companies as you might think,
22:07
because the vast majority of
22:10
the homeowners that lost their homes got zero because it was flood damage.
22:15
And unless you have a separate flood insurance policy, your homeowners is not going to pay anything.
22:21
And unfortunately, less than 3% of the homeowners in North Carolina have flood
22:28
insurance, either through the federal flood insurance program or private flood policies.
22:33
Now, there were a few bright spots. Anybody that has cop and collision,
22:38
that's comprehensive and collision insurance.
22:41
And usually if you're making payments on a vehicle, you're required to have
22:45
that. Cop and collision covers flood damage.
22:48
So if your car is flooded away, you get reimbursed by insurance.
22:52
And there are, if anybody lived in a mobile home in North Carolina,
22:57
if you have mobile home insurance, mobile home insurance automatically includes
23:02
flood coverage. Wow. Which is a plus. us.
23:05
And we have an insurance company, it's VFIS is the name of it.
23:11
They mostly insure the fire departments across the state.
23:14
Almost every volunteer fire department in this state is one of the companies
23:18
that includes flood insurance when they're providing that insurance on the fire department.
23:25
So for those fire departments that were flooded, which many fire departments
23:29
were flooded in western North Carolina. You know, that was a blessing.
23:34
I mean, I bet a lot of people up there never thought they'd need flood insurance. Right.
23:38
They didn't live near, you know, close enough to the water. This was such a.
23:42
Ridiculously huge event. Well, it not only
23:45
washed houses away, sometimes it washed the houses and the land away.
23:49
Yeah. The whole mountain.
23:50
Yeah. Well, what do those people do then? For the ones that shouldn't have ever
23:54
had reason to think they needed flood insurance and they lost their home or
23:58
maybe a lot of damage to their home, what did happen to those folks?
24:02
Well, there's local jurisdictions on the building inspections and who can rebuild
24:07
where, but in many cases, if they were in a flood-prone area and their house was swept away,
24:14
some Some of those folks would not be allowed to rebuild in that same location.
24:19
And there's other places where they may be able to rebuild as long as they go
24:24
up in elevation. We saw that with Hurricane Florence when the 23 southeastern
24:29
counties were underwater.
24:30
And if you go up around Belhaven and Beaufort County, they've had so many storms
24:36
and hurricanes in that area.
24:38
So many houses there are now up 8, 10 feet, 12 feet off the ground.
24:43
But if the insurance wouldn't cover it, you don't have anything to rebuild with, period.
24:47
That is true. They're going to rely on the FEMA or charity or some other way.
24:54
Just a terrible thing. Yeah.
24:56
So just a shout out to everybody still doing work to try to help those in Western
25:00
North Carolina, because obviously we're closing in on a year from that happening in a few months.
25:05
Yeah. And there's still plenty of people in need.
25:07
So, yeah. Well, we've never seen the outpouring of volunteers like we had with
25:12
Aline. I was up there a lot.
25:14
We had folks on the ground. And I want to thank our state employees that traveled
25:19
from all over this state to be in Western North Carolina.
25:23
And we were on the ground every day for weeks and weeks from the end of September up until recently.
25:29
And we did what's called victim's assistance centers.
25:33
So we were there to assist anybody that needed help, whether it was an insurance
25:37
claim or if they had no insurance, we could help connect them with charity.
25:42
One day, I was in Ashe County at the little airport up there with the chairman
25:47
of the county commissioners, and there were planes coming in like crazy.
25:52
And the chairman told me that he'd lived there all his life,
25:56
and that was the most air traffic he had ever seen.
25:59
And one day, they had over 70 planes come in, and every plane was a volunteer
26:04
pilot bringing donated supplies from different companies around the country.
26:10
There's a Learjet that flew in from New York City, and I asked the pilot, what's this?
26:15
And he said, my company decided to help, and we loaded 3,000 pounds of food and supplies on.
26:22
And there were people that's been unloaded at the hangars and—.
26:26
Other volunteers would come and load up the trucks and take them out and distribute
26:31
them to the different areas.
26:33
That was great to see. Yeah, so if you're feeling disheartened,
26:36
Gile, there's lots of good people still in this world.
26:39
Lots of good people, and you had all of these groups like Samaritan's Purse.
26:44
Baptist's Own Mission, and just hundreds and hundreds of churches that had volunteers up there.
26:50
Yeah, it was an impressive effort, and people don't seem to be forgetting,
26:54
which is good. And the state employees were helping other state employees everywhere you went.
27:00
So getting back to the ship cuts and the just cuts in general,
27:04
do you have a sense of where that's going to land?
27:06
Do you think, obviously, we don't know what the two sides are going to decide?
27:10
Well, right now, the House does not have those cuts in.
27:14
And I've talked with the Speaker and several other members of the House,
27:19
and there seems to be a strong will to keep that in there.
27:24
There's still that push to cut positions. But if those 12 positions that we
27:30
froze are not allowed to be filled, then we already know that we're down 12 from where we need to be.
27:38
Well, I'm just sitting here thinking about what you just said.
27:40
Y'all had these centers set up during the Hurricane Helene aftermath.
27:45
What if you had 12 less people to throw towards whatever you needed to do or
27:50
10 less people or whatever if there's cuts? It impacts the people.
27:54
And, I mean, every state agency basically is here to help the people of North Carolina.
27:59
And you can say, well, we don't need this or we don't need that.
28:03
But it's the people that are going to suffer.
28:06
It's the constituents of those legislators that are going to be hearing about it.
28:11
And I see you, whether it's your social media, the departments,
28:14
or other people's, like counties where you show up for things.
28:18
You are very much out there and talking to the people.
28:21
And I think it's one of the things I love about you.
28:25
You're just you're all over the place. You want to stay connected to the people.
28:28
I do enjoy it. I was this morning.
28:30
I was had had breakfast in Hillsborough, had a radio interview for a good while in Hillsborough.
28:36
Then we were in Johnston County and Benson with the governor's highway safety program.
28:41
We had a state highway patrol, the sheriff's office from not only Johnston County,
28:46
but multiple counties. And I was really almost shocked to see the Western Carolina
28:53
Police Department there.
28:54
And I asked these guys, how many hours did it take, five hours driving to attend
29:01
the Governor's Highway Safety Program and Department of Insurance?
29:04
We were having a safety event about hot cars and asking people to please not
29:10
leave your children or pets or anybody in a hot car.
29:14
There's too many people that die with that situation. especially in the summertime.
29:19
But they were so happy to be here. And they said that their chief in Western
29:25
Carolina wanted to get more active in the governor's highway safety program.
29:30
And I said, this is exactly what we need.
29:33
You know, people and agencies working together to educate the public in ways that will keep us safer.
29:40
And, you know, every time you can reduce a traffic fatality,
29:44
that's going to ultimately hold down our insurance costs.
29:47
I saw another video you did today, right? It was posted today, right?
29:53
Today or yesterday, I can't remember. The fireworks.
29:56
Well, that's another thing. Every year, especially around the 4th of July,
30:02
on the 4th of July, the week before, the week after, you've got emergency rooms closed.
30:09
Filling up with people that lose their fingers, they get eyes put out, they're burned.
30:14
And a lot of fireworks are supposedly illegal in North Carolina,
30:19
but you still have people that go to South Carolina or other states and get those fireworks.
30:25
We used to make a trip down there. Bring them back. But my message is leave
30:30
the fireworks to the professionals because, you know, The parents will buy these
30:35
little sparklers, which you can buy anywhere, thinking they're safe.
30:39
But those sparklers hit 2,000 degrees.
30:42
And you can give that to a little girl and her whole clothing catches on fire.
30:47
And she's burned and scarred for life, can put out an eye.
30:52
And even little things like a sparkler cause fires. And we've seen houses catch
30:58
on fire, automobiles catch on fire, woods fires. And so our firefighters stay
31:04
really busy around the 4th of July.
31:06
And this will air on 4th of July. There you go.
31:09
And you're the fire marshal, right? You're the state fire marshal?
31:12
Well, that's another issue.
31:13
I was the state fire marshal for seven years. And again, without my knowledge
31:19
or without any discussion with me, there was somebody...
31:23
In the Senate that thought it was a good idea to take the title away from the
31:27
insurance commissioner and give it to somebody else.
31:31
Did they give it to the state auditor? It was sort of like they did with the state highway patrol.
31:37
Yeah. But in this case, we now have a hundred and some people that are the office
31:43
of state fire marshal was under
31:45
the Department of Insurance created by insurance Commissioner Jim Long.
31:50
Now, we do all of their work and support work. We pay all their bills.
31:55
We issue all the grants. But I have no say over what they're doing or who they
31:59
hire or fire, and they don't report to anybody.
32:03
So this is a real problem for the Department of Insurance internally.
32:09
And so I'm saying I'm certainly not trying to tell the legislature what to do,
32:14
But they either need to put it back like it was or take it totally from the
32:21
Department of Insurance and put it under the governor or somebody and fund it.
32:26
We fund the whole fire marshal office through the insurance regulatory fund.
32:32
But you don't have any say over it. So our attorney's saying if something goes
32:37
wrong, the commissioner of insurance and the Department of Insurance is ultimately
32:42
liable for whatever they do.
32:44
But the legislature has put me in a position of not being able to say who the
32:50
state fire marshal is or anything that they do.
32:53
Even though we do all of their human resources, everything, they do not have
33:00
to follow the same rules as the Department of Insurance because they're a,
33:04
quote, independent agency, but they're not independent agency.
33:07
They're totally dependent on the Department of Insurance. That is bizarre. Yeah.
33:12
Well, Artis, you want to put him on the spot with your question?
33:15
Yeah, so I've got a big question. Okay, go ahead.
33:17
I'm used to that. So Senator Tillis says he's not running again.
33:21
And since he said that a couple of days ago, it seems that everybody under the
33:25
sun seems to be kind of angling for it, asking, wanting somebody to ask him to do it.
33:30
So I'm going to ask you, are you going to run for Senator Tillis's seat?
33:34
Absolutely not. I like what I do. I enjoy being the commissioner of insurance.
33:39
And I've seen that before where people, they might be in one elected position
33:44
and say, well, I want to be governor.
33:45
I want to be United States Senator. But I think there are plenty of folks that
33:50
will run, and there won't be any shortage of people in the primaries on both sides.
33:56
We're glad you're Commissioner of Inter. Yes, we are. Breaking news.
33:59
We can call that breaking news. You can check one Republican off the list.
34:04
Well, do we have anything else to talk about? No, we've just appreciated it.
34:08
Yeah, we appreciate you giving us that. Thank you so much.
34:10
Is there something you wanted to add? Well, I know that we do get a lot of calls
34:15
pertaining to the state health plan, and I have to remind folks that the state
34:21
health plan is under the state treasurer, but we do help.
34:24
So, if anybody sends us their issue or complaint, we do handle it through our
34:30
consumer group. We send it to the state treasurer.
34:33
We work closely with the state treasurer's office, and we've been able to get
34:38
some good results. And we also have a program that I haven't mentioned. It's called Smart NC.
34:45
And whether that's the state health plan or if somebody just has a dispute with
34:50
a hospital, let's say that you've been in the hospital for surgery or whatever,
34:55
and you think all your bills have been taken care of.
34:59
And six months, a year later, you get this big bill.
35:03
You owe $12,000 to the hospital, which has happened many, many times.
35:08
Sometimes it's $40,000 or $50,000.
35:11
All we need to do is know about it.
35:14
Our smart NC folks, and they're on the phone every day.
35:17
They will call the insurance company, the hospital or medical provider,
35:23
sometimes it's a doctor's office or what have you, and the claimant,
35:28
the policyholder, and we get really good results.
35:32
And a lot of times it's things like miscoding or miscommunication.
35:37
We had one lady, she got a bill for $54,000 over a year after she was out of
35:44
the hospital, didn't know where to turn,
35:47
came to us at Smart NC, and we got in touch with all the parties.
35:53
And the insurance company said, oh, we'll pay that.
35:55
Somebody miscoded that from either the hospital or the insurance,
36:00
and every bit of it was paid for.
36:01
I think the lady might have had to pay $150 co-pay or something.
36:06
See, I don't think taxpayers have any idea there's things like that happening
36:09
at the Department of Insurance.
36:10
They don't. We talk about the perception of public services and state employees
36:14
often. So we're educating people on what kind of services the Department of
36:18
Insurance provides to citizens.
36:20
And it's so good to know ahead of time because I've had people tell me,
36:26
I've been in a battle for three years with my insurance company,
36:29
and I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.
36:33
And they get in touch with our consumer division, and the consumer gets it resolved
36:38
in two days, and they get a check.
36:40
And they say, why didn't I think about that earlier? So if people will just
36:44
go to our website, ncdoi.gov, and I know that maybe somebody out there has had
36:50
an issue with an insurance claim,
36:53
but if you do, don't fight the insurance company alone.
36:57
Go to the ncdoi.gov. There's a little button, and you click that button,
37:03
and you can fill out the form in 40, 45 seconds, and your life will be much easier.
37:08
Awesome. Noted. We could all benefit from that. Yes. Yeah. Indeed.
37:12
Well, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.
37:15
Good luck with everything, and we'll be here working with you.
37:18
Thank you, Commissioner.
37:19
Definitely. This is a good group. All right.
37:24
Music.
37:30
All right. And we're back. Great interview there with Commissioner Kazi.
37:34
Yeah, it was a good interview.
37:37
I never knew the insurance could be so exciting. Lots of information,
37:41
lots of information that people would not have been aware of.
37:44
So, yeah, great interview.
37:46
And we told him we would mention this, the vacant positions in his agency.
37:50
He was very specific. He gave us some notes on what is available, an actuarial analyst.
37:57
An insurance consumer analyst, insurance regulatory analyst,
38:01
and even as far into it as his executive assistant position.
38:06
These are critical jobs. I mean, you heard him in his interview talking about
38:11
what they do for the state to prevent rate increases.
38:15
I saw one position was with the SHIP program that we were talking about.
38:21
So if you guys are interested in any of those positions, if anyone is searching
38:26
for a job, You can go to ncdoi.gov.
38:30
Under careers, you will find job openings. So something to consider.
38:35
Awesome. And now it's time for the Gen Z Minute. What's going on in Gen Z world, Sam?
38:42
So today I have an article that I found from the Stanford Report that talks
38:47
about eight ways that the Gen Z is changing the workforce.
38:51
I'll run through them very quickly and then we can kind going to talk about
38:53
which ones you find most interesting. So number one was that Gen Z's expect change.
38:59
Number two was that Gen Z's are much more pragmatic than previous generations.
39:04
Number three was that Gen Z wants to make a difference.
39:08
Number four is that Gen Z values collaboration and teamwork.
39:13
Number five was that Gen Z wants leaders who guide by consensus.
39:17
Number six was Gen Z cares about mental health and work-life balance more than
39:23
some of the previous generations.
39:25
Number seven was that Gen Zs think differently about loyalty.
39:29
And number eight was that Gen Zs look for trust and authenticity. So many questions.
39:36
Okay, go back to what was number two? That Gen Zs are more pragmatic.
39:41
What does that mean exactly? It means that Gen Zs are more likely to question
39:47
everyone and everything.
39:49
They don't necessarily see the elders as experts and aren't afraid to challenge
39:54
how things are done. Well, you're wrong.
39:59
And it's more of when they're told this is how you should do it.
40:03
They're not afraid to go and look for maybe a better way.
40:07
I mean, that's a good thing. Yeah, we want to foster.
40:10
Yeah, if you can do it better than us, do it.
40:13
Not that we want to, we have to.
40:16
Right, or we want to, yeah. And they ask a lot more questions so they can understand
40:21
more how this may be the best way to do it rather than a way that they may think
40:27
is better to do it. That's a good thing.
40:30
And then the sense of purpose. I'm interested in the team thing because I do
40:34
think that's true. But it's interesting the way you pull a team together.
40:38
Y'all prefer to like be in your individual space, but electronically together.
40:44
Yeah. And that kind of is what it focuses on in this article.
40:48
It talks about how the digital world really helps shape our identity.
40:53
And we grew up in an age where there were so many groups that you could join
40:58
online and bond over shared interest to where even if you aren't in a group setting,
41:06
you still have that group identity.
41:09
The connectedness. And that connectedness, yeah, which I thought was really cool. It is cool.
41:13
One of my favorite ones in it was where they were talking about how they think
41:18
differently about loyalty.
41:20
Yeah, that was the other one I wanted to know. What does that mean?
41:22
Yes. So we grew up feeling like our parents weren't valued as much as they valued
41:30
the company they worked for.
41:32
And so we kind of grew up with the 2008 recession and COVID where things got
41:38
cut a lot, whether it be positions or benefits.
41:43
And so now they look more at, I'm going to be loyal to a company that is loyal
41:49
to me as an employee and gives me what I deserve and treats me how I...
41:56
Well, you know your self-worth.
41:57
It's a mutual respect thing. And it's a big mutual respectful communications.
42:01
Because I think also, however we were raised, even if we were raised with the
42:05
you respect your elders, we have grown up and learned more that it is a two-way street.
42:11
All right, we can take this out of us if I'm offensive. John's like,
42:16
if I'm offensive, hashtag, I'm getting ready to be offensive.
42:19
I don't mean to be offensive, but I really do appreciate your generation and mine and whatever.
42:25
But I wonder how these things would change if we do go through a period of economic trouble.
42:32
You know, I think that this generation hasn't felt, and even my generation probably
42:36
hasn't felt, huge recessions the way generations before us did.
42:40
Not as, well, we haven't gone through a depression, but I'd say,
42:45
you know, the economy constricted to where it affected jobs.
42:49
And I do think, I mean, that's obviously true. Since the post-COVID economy
42:53
has been the most unique economy in terms of employee power of any of our lifetimes.
43:00
And, you know, the digital age has kind of opened that up as well. Yeah.
43:04
So, I mean, that's just all just very interesting. But what's mainly,
43:08
I think, changed everybody's attitudes is there's less and less benefits being given by employers.
43:13
So people are thinking, why do I need to stick around here and try to be a star performer?
43:20
When I can go do my own thing. Yeah, because if it's just about what I'm going
43:23
to make per hour, I'll do it for myself. If it's what I'm going to make per
43:26
hour, plus it's going to give me stability of benefits. But that's eroding.
43:30
That's right. And that's why state government is still attractive. Young people, for real.
43:35
Director Meyer of the Office of State Human Resources has said it everywhere I've heard her speak.
43:39
They want to try to attract young people back into state government.
43:43
We need them. We need the fresh thinking.
43:45
And I think, John, I don't think you were offensive. I think you're just throwing
43:48
some reality into the situation, which is a lot of people have gone to work
43:52
in a time period where they haven't seen yet.
43:55
What it's like for jobs to be hard to come by. And when that happens,
43:59
I do think more people will want to come back to the state.
44:02
The question is, how much have we eroded the jobs in the state by that time? Yeah.
44:07
Maybe we can have Director Meyer on the podcast.
44:10
But I mean, I think those are, what you read sounds pretty on point from our
44:15
experience with y'all. Good job, Sam.
44:17
Any pop culture minutes you can speak about? Besides the P.
44:25
Diddy verdict, there's not much.
44:28
There's not much. There's not really any award ceremonies or anything going on right now.
44:33
It's a slow-term release. It's just hot in summer. Yeah.
44:37
There's a lot of new music coming out. Get ready for new music this summer.
44:41
Sabrina Carpenter's releasing new music. Benson Boone just released some new
44:44
music. A lot of new pop music.
44:45
Is it going to be a Sabrina summer again this year? I think so.
44:50
I think so. I don't love her new song. I don't think it's as catchy as last
44:53
year's bangers. Espresso.
44:57
Everybody's going to start tuning into the Scenic Podcast for their...
45:00
Yeah, they're just going to be like, I want to fast forward to the last 10 minutes.
45:03
That pop culture minute. Yeah.
45:06
All right. Well, now it's time for the question of the week to wrap up.
45:09
I'm speechless. Yeah, I got nothing.
45:11
John's Wacky Weird Question of the Week.
45:12
Music.
45:18
So as we talked about with Commissioner Mike Cossett, It is July 4th week.
45:23
Last year, I remember our question was, do you like fireworks?
45:27
Yeah, only safe ones. Yeah. So this year we'll do just what's your favorite part of the 4th of July?
45:33
Yes. So I'll just jump in and go first here. So Commissioner Causey talked about illegal fireworks.
45:39
And I'm going to throw artists in this mix because she was in it too.
45:43
But we used to live in Granville County, way out in the country.
45:46
I just watched. We would pool our funds in our little neighborhood,
45:51
and one of the guys next door would make the trip,
45:54
come back with a truckload of fireworks, and we would have our own fireworks
45:58
display out in the country, in the horse pasture.
46:02
Artis has brought her family and come and enjoyed the fireworks on the 4th before when we lived there.
46:08
I thought we were in South Carolina. I didn't realize. Virginia. Virginia.
46:14
Do they have lax fireworks? I don't think so. If they do, we didn't know about it.
46:20
So, yeah, we didn't want to go anywhere. Don't remember that either.
46:23
Anything stand out with you, Artis, on the 4th of July?
46:26
I mean, 4th of July, for the longest time for me, once I got older,
46:31
was just about everything it literally means for our country.
46:35
What the founding fathers were thinking and doing and studying the supposed
46:41
conversations they were having as they were putting together the Declaration
46:45
of Independence and their thoughts around becoming this new country,
46:49
this complete experiment of a country.
46:52
And so I loved July 4th for that reason for years. And then I lost my mother
46:57
on July 4th of one year of 2007.
47:00
And, you know, so it kind of changed, dimmed the light for me for just a little
47:04
bit. But then I realized having kids that you got to still focus on what matters.
47:08
So to me, it still comes down to that. I think we have lost a lot of that spirit
47:13
that folks had who founded this country. And I am prayerful.
47:17
And I think that's what I'll spend this July 4th doing a lot of is reflection
47:21
and prayer about how we move forward together.
47:24
Anyway, that's my July 4th thought. And I also will say that if she was going
47:29
to go on July 4th, at least mom has Thomas Jefferson and John Adams' company,
47:33
because that's when they passed.
47:36
For me, I think, I mean, when I was really little and I lived in Tennessee,
47:40
we would just buy a bunch of fireworks and set them off in the yard after playing
47:43
in the pool, and my dad would grill out something.
47:47
And then once we moved to North Carolina, we had a family friend who had a lake
47:50
house. So we would go out there and spend the whole day on the lake doing wakeboarding
47:55
and tubing, which is always terrifying because they said they would drive slow.
48:01
They did not drive slow. And then at the end of the night, we would all get
48:04
on the pontoon boat and have some blankets and just kind of curl up and watch
48:08
the fireworks from the middle of the lake.
48:10
Yeah, that's very good old-fashioned. Very cool. Yeah.
48:12
I think that 4th of July might be my favorite holiday besides Christmas.
48:16
Everybody loves Christmas. Yeah, right.
48:17
But yeah, just the same reason artists talk about it. I love watching all the
48:22
programs on the History Channel.
48:24
Back in the day, they would have like a whole series on the presidents or like,
48:27
you know, they had that series America, which was really cool.
48:30
And of course, the hot dog eating contest. We'd have to watch that at noon.
48:34
Joey Chestnut's going to be back in it this year. Oh, that's right. He is. Yeah.
48:38
And then when I got married, my wife and her family always go to Oakboro,
48:42
which is, do y'all know where that is? it's over near, it's in Stanley County
48:46
near, near Charlotte, maybe.
48:48
Yeah, it's kind of on the way to Charlotte. They always have a 4th of July parade
48:51
and so it's like old cars and it's tractors. Oh, I love that. And it's really cool.
48:55
Little town with, like, you come out from after you go through the Uari.
48:59
Yeah. It's right there. Shout out to Oak Bar.
49:02
Well, I am glad Commissioner Kazi did remind everybody, please be safe,
49:06
make sure your kids are safe, because they are so, fireworks are so much fun.
49:10
But, you know, so, yeah, anyway, be safe. Also, Teenagers still do that, too.
49:15
Yeah, also. Don't drink and drive. Please. Everyone's drinking.
49:18
Ever. 100%. Don't do that. And don't drink and drive a boat. No.
49:23
People get in a boat and they think it's okay. And they think it's,
49:26
you know, like, acceptable. It's not.
49:28
Well, you're right. So it's a dangerous time on the water, too.
49:30
So July 4th is always. Yes.
49:32
So everybody, just have fun, but be safe. And do please think about what it's
49:38
about. Yes. Happy 4th of July, everyone.
49:41
Music.