Florida insurance commissioner interviews include Delray Beach’s Hager

March 23--Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater of North Palm Beach, a pivotal vote for the state's next insurance commissioner, is scheduled to interview seven candidates Wednesday including state Rep. Bill Hager, R-Delray Beach.

Any overlap of interview agendas between Gov. Rick Scott and Atwater could prove significant for the $200,000 a year post. Why? Both must be on the prevailing side of a vote for a new insurance chief in the four-member Florida Cabinet.

Scott interviewed Hager on Tuesday. A day earlier, Scott talked to two other candidates Atwater has seen or will see: Florida deputy insurance commissioner David Altmaier and Jeffrey Bragg, who served from 2003 to 2014 as executive director of the U.S. Dept. of Treasury's terrorism risk insurance program.

State officials will select from among 55 candidates who have applied to replace Kevin McCarty, who has announced he is leaving the post in early May. Cabinet aides meet Wednesday, and the full Cabinet meets March 29.

Also on Atwater's interview agenda Wednesday: Scott Kipper, former Nevada insurance commissioner and Pharmaceutical Care Management Association vice president, and John Rollins, chief risk officer for state-run insurer Citizens.

The CFO also plans to talk to insurance agent Dulce Suarez-Resnick of Miramar; former Bankers Insurance Group president Wilbur Martin of St. Petersburg; and consultant and former Illinois regulator William Schacht. Scott's Wednesday schedule was not immediately available.

Hager was Iowa's insurance commissioner from 1986 to 1990 and has worked recently as president and founder of Insurance Metrics Corp. in Boca Raton. His work there has included "providing expert witness testimony in complex insurance cases" and arbitrating reinsurance disputes.

Hager sponsored a bill that passed this year to help families get life insurance benefits. He is also drawing questions from some interest groups about how effectively he can pivot from soliciting business from companies to regulating them, as well as questions about his support of legislation that could have raised consumer costs by reducing the size of the state's hurricane fund.

The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund provides back-up coverage to insurance companies that tends to be less expensive than private-sector alternatives, keeping consumer premiums lower. Hager has defended legislation to shrink the state fund as a move to protect Floridians against a "hurricane tax" -- assessments that could be needed to shore up the fund after particularly severe storms.

State law requires that must candidates must have, within the past 10 years, at least five years of relevant private sector experience or five years years in senior government regulatory work overseeing insurance.

Atwater interviewed four current employees of the state insurance office Tuesday: Altmaier, Chief of Staff Belinda Miller, Chief Actuary Eric Johnson and deputy commissioner Rich Robleto.

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