[bright music] - Joining me is Senator Natasha Marcus, a Democrat, running for North Carolina's Commissioner of Insurance.

Senator, thanks for being here today.

- Thank you for the opportunity and I appreciate PBS providing this public service for voters know more about these Council of State races.

- It's our pleasure.

Thank you for booking an interview for "State Lines."

First of all, one thing about Council State Races in North Carolina, you run as hard as you can.

You spend money, you buy ads, and so many voters don't know who their candidates are.

Who's Natasha Marcus?

What led you to run for Commissioner of Insurance?

- You're right, so many people tell me they don't even know that we vote on Commissioner of Insurance.

So I again appreciate this opportunity.

I'm Natasha Marcus, proud to have been serving in the North Carolina Senate now for three terms, representing my district in Mecklenburg County.

I grew up in a small college town in a rural part of New York.

My dad was an elected official and a lawyer.

He liked to call himself a country lawyer.

And my mom was a 35 year public school teacher.

The kind of teacher who to this day have students reach out to her to tell them how important she was to their education, so I'm always proud of where I came from.

So I didn't grow up in North Carolina, but I'd like to say I got here as quick as I could.

Came down for law school in 1991 and never left.

I practiced law in Greensboro with a firm there, did litigation work and then moved to Davidson where I live now.

Raised my two daughters here.

They're both grown and adults.

One's a teacher herself now and one is studying, she's a PhD scientist studying addiction and married to a naval officer.

So I have served in the Senate, as I said, six years.

I'm on the various committees.

The one most relevant for today's discussion is the Commerce and Insurance Committee.

- I had that written down as a question too.

One thing I did not hear you say in your biographical sketch there was- Have you ever worked in the insurance industry?

Some candidates do, some legislators do.

What's your link with insurance as a career or is that something you noticed when assessing the race?

- My career has always been about advocacy.

So when I was a litigation attorney, I advocate for my client, as a parent, I advocate for my kids, and as a senator, I advocate for my constituents.

And I think that's what the voters of North Carolina need and should have in their Commissioner of Insurance, not someone who's entangled with the insurance companies.

My opponent, the incumbent Commissioner of Insurance, used to be an industry lobbyist [laughs] and has a lot of connections with, and in my opinion, is too cozy with the insurance companies because this role is to represent the people of North Carolina and advocate for them and their best interest, and their wallets, not the insurance companies, so... - Yeah, as an entire department, not just as a commissioner, what should the relationship be between the state agency called Department of Insurance and all the insurance companies out there that quite frankly, we all count on?

- Right, so I'm glad you asked that because again, a lot of voters don't understand the Rate Bureau is a non-governmental entity that represents the insurance companies.

They're a professional organization.

Their job is to make sure that insurance companies can make as much profit as possible.

That's their goal.

The Commissioner of Insurance is the one person who we as North Carolinians have an opportunity to elect once every four years.

And the role of Commissioner of Insurance is to represent the people and to keep rates as low as possible while still having a vibrant marketplace of insurance options.

As you said, we don't wanna drive insurance companies out of our state.

We don't wanna become Florida, right?

We want them to want to write policies here.

And in order to do that, they're entitled to earn a reasonable profit.

Reasonable though Kelly, not whatever they want.

It's a regulated market because people are required to have these forms of insurance, homeowners, auto insurance, workers' comp, and it's supposed to be a fair price, that right balance between enough profit for the insurance companies that they want to do business here, but an affordable price for North Carolinians.

And so it's, you ask what's the relationship supposed to be?

It's supposed to be a little bit adversarial.

The Commissioner of Insurance is supposed to say, when the rate bureau comes and asks for yet another rate hike, he's supposed to say, "Well, wait a minute.

Prove to me, show me the data that explains and justifies why you think you need raise your rates again on North Carolinians."

And if the Rate Bureau can't provide that data to prove that it needs to go up, then the Commissioner of Insurance is supposed to say, "No, rates are not going up."

And unfortunately under the incumbent Commissioner of Insurance, that relationship has not been very adversarial.

He time and time again, 16 times in a row has agreed to raise rates and never once required that public hearing on a rate hike to force the insurance companies to justify it, show us the data.

It's supposed to be a public hearing in under oath testimony, subject to cross-examination, about what have you actually paid out in claims in North Carolina?

What are you paying your top executives, what are your profits off of North Carolinians here?

And only then if it's justified, should rates ever go up.

- So you would do public hearings?

- Absolutely.

The previous Commissioners of Insurance did the public hearings so the public could see is there data to justify a rate hike or not?

And without a public hearing, there hasn't been one, even one in eight years under the incumbent Commissioner of Insurance, we have no basis on which to understand why rates would go up at all.

And if they need to go up, and sometimes they do, you know, as I said, they are entitled to make a reasonable profit, but if what is the right number?

What is a fair number?

We don't know because there's never been a public hearing under Mike Causey.

And that's a major lack of transparency.

That is, in my mind, the biggest part of the job of insurance commissioner to make sure that rates don't go up one penny more than they are supposed to.

So the public hearings are that's what's lacking under Mike Causey and something I am determined to bring back.

- What challenges do you think insurance companies are legitimately facing in this state, in terms of things about our society, inside our state borders, that do affect revenue and do affect payouts?

- Yes, so first let me say, we know from the data that was provided by AM Best and analyzed by the New York Times recently that insurance companies here in North Carolina on homeowners policies, the one policy that they claim that they lose money on, they have made profits nine out of the 10 past years here in North Carolina, pretty big profits.

And they are using those profits that they're making here in our state to offset losses in other states.

Interestingly, states like Iowa, so not even a coastal state, but states like Iowa, they're losing money and they're earning more here to offset those losses there.

That's exactly what our North Carolina Commissioner of Insurance is supposed to be protecting us from.

So I will say that up front, there is a tough- It's a hard market right now, global reinsurance is really tough to find, particularly for companies that do business in states that aren't dealing well with the ever increasing storms.

We have a big coastline here in North Carolina.

We have a lot of low lying land in our state.

So we are more vulnerable to the changes in the climate that we've seen and this ever strengthening storms and the damage that they do.

So we have to be mindful of that.

The better we are about facing that head on and encouraging mitigation efforts and resiliency efforts, the better our market will be for insurance.

Here in north we want to not only have insurance companies wanting to write policies here, but for them to be able to buy the reinsurance that they need to stay solvent.

- You know, your service with three terms, State Senate Commerce and Insurance committee, you brought that up.

What did that teach you about the insurance market as you were absorbing all this policy coming in?

More importantly, if you're elected, you have to deal with your senate colleagues, the GOP majority likely.

How's all that gonna work for you over four years?

- I think it's a huge benefit I have that my opponent doesn't have that I have served in the legislature.

I understand how the legislators work and have served on the committee, as you mentioned, commerce and insurance.

I am in the Minority Party in the Senate and one of the loud voices in opposition to some of the policies that I think hurt North Carolina and hurt our insurance market.

So the most prominent of which is a bill that the governor just vetoed last month, I'm hoping his veto will hold because it was a bill pushed by the Home Builders Association here in North Carolina that has a huge lobbying power in our state government to stop us from updating our building codes that directly impacts insurance because we have not updated our building codes in more than 20 years.

So new homes are being built that are not up to modern energy efficiency standards and not up to the building codes that are gonna make homes resilient against these ever strengthening storms.

So when legislators allow their friends, their lobbyists to influence them in a way that makes bad policy not updating building codes, that has huge impacts on North Carolinian's wallets, but also our ability to be eligible for FEMA reimbursement funds after big storms or already not eligible to apply for and receive some FEMA recovery money because our building codes are not up to date.

And then of course, homeowners build a brand new home and are paying more than they should for energy.

And their homes are not fortified against big storms.

- It's just money.

- So that's a problem.

- Just money senator, [Senator Natasha laughs] lemme ask you about that.

You could go in a million directions as insurance commissioner, like you say, going into resiliency and all.

Where do you focus when you come into office?

Do you stick right to those rates or is there much more to it than that?

- So there's a whole lot that the insurance commissioner does and I'm eager to tackle a lot of it.

I would say the top three issues for me are the transparency.

We gotta bring back transparency.

Public hearings are a big part of that.

Advocacy, we have got to get back to working on behalf of the people.

Again, the job is not to work for insurance companies.

They have the Rate Bureau, they have their people to advocate for them.

It's the people of North Carolina who are lacking an advocate right now.

The consumer relations division, consumer protection division, at the Department of Insurance has been whittled down, fewer and fewer staff there.

So when a typical North Carolinian who is having trouble getting his or her claim paid on a policy, they've been paying their premiums year after year, and now they need coverage.

If they're having trouble getting what is due them, they're supposed to be able to the Department of Insurance and have someone there who's ready to fight for them and make sure they understand their policy and are getting what they're entitled to.

And I look forward to reinvigorating that effort because that is a part of the job that I think, again, directly impacts North Carolinians.

And so it's so important that we bring those things back and focus again on what the job is.

North Carolina is one of only 11 states.

I don't know if you knew that, that allows the people of the state to elect their Commissioner of Insurance.

Most states it's an appointed position.

The people have no say whatsoever and no way to hold that person accountable.

But in North Carolina, we vote this person in or out and this is our chance to get someone in there who's gonna work for the people of North Carolina.

- There you go, Natasha Marcus, democratic nominee for Commissioner of Insurance in North Carolina.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you for the opportunity.

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