Mulready visits Claremore during campaign for Insurance Commissioner

Dec. 11--Long-time insurance man Glen Mulready's campaign Insurance Commissioner for the State of Oklahoma led him to Claremore this week.

"Today, I am here in Claremore to discuss my plans to protect consumers, to prevent fraud, and to continue to make Oklahoma's insurance market one of the most business friendly in the country," Mulready said Thursday. "I am enjoying traveling around the state meeting voters and listening to the thoughts and ideas of both insurance professionals and consumers."

Mulready said he has been in the insurance business for 34-years and spent 13 of those years on the executive teams of two of the state's largest health insurance companies. Most recently, though, he has been self-employed as an independent broker.

"Additionally, I was elected to the House of Representatives seven years ago in 2010 and have been heavily involved in anything to do with insurance or health care while at the capitol. I'm sort of 'The Insurance Guy,'" he said. "With John Doak being done due to term limits I saw this as the opportunity to put my 34-years of experience and knowledge, and working knowledge of the legislature, to work at a higher and broader level for the state of Oklahoma."

He said the insurance industry has been a blessing to him and his family and he sees this opportunity as a way of giving back.

Mulready said he has received an endorsement from current Insurance Commissioner John Doak and looks forward to carrying on with the work Doak has started.

"I think Commissioner Doak has done a good job. He's developed a great reputation nationally for being business friendly and I've worked closely with him while in the legislature to try to try to attract businesses to the state and I want to continue to do that," he said. "I think that would be a big emphasis of mine."

To that end, Mulready described himself as a "free market guy."

"More competition drives down costs and increase efficiencies," he said. "Specifically in the health insurance arena where we are down to one insurance company on the individual marketplace, more competition would be very helpful. It would give Oklahomans more choices and hopefully drive down costs."

Fraud, he said, is another area he would focus his efforts on.

"I look forward to digging into what more we can do that. That is a cost driver on insurance costs," he said,

adding that he thinks Commissioner Doak has done a good job dispatching the fraud unit in the aftermath of disasters.

Protecting consumers is another key part of the job, he said.

"I have spent more than three decades creating insurance solutions for consumers, as well as large and small businesses alike in my profession. I am eager to apply my years of experience to help safeguard Oklahomans as their next Insurance Commissioner," Mulready said.

To help combat fraud, Mulready said he will work tirelessly to ensure that those selling insurance in the state are honest, fair and reliable.

"I think I am uniquely qualified, uniquely positioned, for this role. I think that I have had experience in the property and casualty world, and on the insurance company side of things, and as a health insurance broker. I think I've had varied experience that can really go to work for Oklahoma. My perspective is strongly a free market perspective. From a regulatory standpoint I would tend to be not heavy-handed, which is not conducive to attracting competition. I think Commissioner Doak has done a good job balancing that and I would like to continue that."

On the campaign trail Mulready said the most common question he comes across isn't one about policy-it's about the job.

Most voters, he said, don't know exactly what role the state Insurance Commissioner plays.

"A lot of people have the idea of 'why should I care about the Insurance Commissioner?' So what I tend to do is say, 'who in this room has an insurance policy?' It's every single person. So I tell them, 'that's why you need to care

about this race. Because the insurance commission office touches pretty much everyone, it impacts everyone," he

said.

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