North Carolina.- When Marjorie Burnside moved to coastal North Carolina several years ago after retiring as a New York City police officer, she didn’t know much about the candidates running for obscure positions across the state, which They supervise Agriculture, labor and insurance.
So Burnside, a lifelong Republican, voted for her party.
Now, he believes many of the elected Republicans in his area are responsible for approving many development projects.
And she’s furious that they haven’t reined in home insurance premiums, which have increased by 75 percent.
That’s why she accepted a friend’s recent invitation to a beach party for Democratic state Sen. Natasha Marcus, who is challenging the state’s insurance commissioner, who is a Republican.
“She gave me a lot to think about,” said Burnside, 59, after hearing Marcus’s warnings about gaps affecting policyholders and rates in coastal areas that are likely to see a significant increase.
“More people, more claims and more increases, everything is connected.”
Eleven states elected their insurance commissioners, an obscure but powerful position that affects virtually every resident through regulations and the ability to challenge or reject rate increases on home, auto and other property policies.
The competition has usually been treated as an afterthought involving little-known candidates, so hundreds of thousands of voters have left their ballots blank.
However, as housing and insurance costs have skyrocketed, particularly in areas experiencing impacts from climate change and extreme temperatures, those races are becoming proxies for public frustration over money.
Anguish over insurance has already had an impact on local elections this year: in Honolulu, state Rep. Scott Saiki, speaker of the Hawaii House since 2017, lost in the Democratic primary amid criticism that he failed to stop rates of condominium insurance.
In Orlando, a Democrat won a special election for a state House seat highlighting homeowners insurance, flipping a district that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida won easily in 2022.
The timing couldn’t be more relevant, considering the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and Tropical Storm Debby.
Lawsuits running into trillions of dollars are likely.
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