Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler will be leaving office in January 2025. (Courtesy of Washington state Office of the Insurance Commissioner)
Mike Kreidler, currently Washington’s oldest and longest-serving statewide elected official, exits the public stage next week, ending a political career spanning six decades.
He’s retiring after six terms as state insurance commissioner, a tenure in which he oversaw the expansion of consumer protections and fraud investigations and the regulation of insurers coping with increasingly complex challenges such as climate change.
In a half-hour podcast aired Monday, Kreidler, 81, touched on dilemmas faced, lessons learned and highlights of the job he first got elected to in 2000.
“For me, it’s being able to help people, to be able to have a health insurance system the way it’s supposed to be,” he said on the agency production, OIC Answers.
But he’s ready to get out and rototill the backyard and get planting.
“I’m gonna use my John Deere tractor,” he said, bemoaning the lack of hours he’s been able to spend at the wheel.
A long career
Kreidler, an optometrist who worked for Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound in Olympia, was first elected in 1973 to the North Thurston School District Board of Directors.
Four years later, he won a seat in the state House of Representatives. He served eight years in the House and eight more in the state Senate before winning a U.S. House seat in 1992. One term later he was narrowly ousted.
Kreidler, a liberal Democrat, made a successful return in 2000 when he was elected insurance commissioner. He was reelected five times.
“This is where I had the chance to take on tough issues and make changes around health insurance,” he told the podcast hosts.
When he arrived, he said that the Office of the Insurance Commissioner had lost its accreditation from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. It took “a lot of work by staff” to regain accreditation, he said.
On his watch, the federal Affordable Care Act became a reality for thousands of Washington residents. He said, with pride, the percentage of uninsured people went from 15% before the law went into effect to 5% when it was fully implemented.
He established himself as an ardent voice for consumers and was willing to stand up to insurers whose filings with the state in the past two decades have gone from 30 pages to nearly 3,000, demanding much more rigorous review.
Insurance companies are using newer technology, specifically artificial intelligence, and it’s important to stay up to date on that technology to make sure it’s been used in accordance with Washington’s insurance laws, he said.
“The sophistication of what they put forward makes it much more difficult for insurance regulators to evaluate,” he said. “That is probably the biggest challenge I see right now.”
Untold chapters
There have been setbacks not discussed in Monday’s podcast.
For example, he fought for years to bar insurers’ from using credit scores in setting rates for auto and home policies, feeling such practices are discriminatory and results in people with low incomes and people of color paying more for coverage. He eventually succeeded, but only briefly as insurers sued and a court overturned the department policy.
In his final term, Kreidler became a pariah among the political class after some of his former colleagues accused him of bullying and mistreatment, and making racist statements. He issued a lengthy response to the media coverage but rebuffed those who wanted him to resign.
“It pains me deeply to think that the careless words I have used in the past — even if infrequent — could have hurt someone,” he said in an April 2022 statement. “I am sorry for any pain I have caused and for taking attention away from the accomplishments and efforts of the people I work with here.”
Passing the baton
Kreidler’s departure comes as consumers deal with climbing insurance costs.
Auto insurance rate hikes have slowed since a big surge in 2022 but must still be monitored, he said. While Washington has “made great strides” on access to affordable health care “the cost is still a barrier for a lot of people,” he said.
And homeowners in areas damaged or threatened by wildfires are seeing premium increases too and, in some cases, coverage is harder to find, he said.
“One of the biggest challenges is climate change and how it relates to risk. We’ve seen an uptick in extreme weather events,” he said. If that continues, will certain things that are insurable right now become uninsurable in the future?”
These all are matters Patty Kuderer must contend with when she takes the reins as insurance commissioner next week.
Kreidler’s No. 1 advice to her: listen carefully to what consumers are saying.
“I am sure she will. She’s already shown remarkable talent in this regard as a senator,” he said