WA senators set to face off in November to replace longtime insurance commissioner

A pool of eight candidates to be Washington state's next insurance commissioner has been narrowed down to two following Tuesday’s primary election.

State Sens. Patty Kuderer and Phil Fortunato, a Democrat and Republican, respectively, are leading in the race, with Kuderer way out in front with about 45% of the vote to Fortunato's 28%, an impressive showing for having less than one-sixth of his opponent's campaign contributions.

"I said spend every single penny we have because it's not going to do me any good to have money there if we lost the primary," Fortunato told The Center Square on Wednesday afternoon.

Republican Justin Murta got about 10% of the votes on Tuesday evening.

Democrat John Pestinger, a project manager in the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s consumer division, had just under 6% of the votes.

The remaining four – Bill Boyd, Jonathan Hendrix, Chris Chung and Tim Verzal – each received less than 4% of the vote.

Current Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, who has held the office for the last 23 years, did not seek reelection.

The OIC is one of the smaller state agencies but oversees Washington's insurance industry at a time when insurance rates have been skyrocketing.

On average, insurance companies nationwide sought to raise homeowners' premiums by more than 11% last year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Since 2022, most homeowners have faced increased premiums of about 20%.

Auto insurance rates have gone up even more. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, each of the 10 largest underwriters raised their premium rates by double digits, compounding substantial hikes in 2022.

Insurance companies insist they're just playing catch-up, after two years of big losses. For every dollar in home and auto premiums they collected last year, insurance companies paid an average of $1.10 in claims and expenses, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

According to the OIC's website, among responsibilities of the office is answering questions and investigating problems from more than 120,000 consumers each year and recovering millions of dollars a year for consumers with insurance disputes or delays.

Kuderer’s campaign website lists universal healthcare, protecting access to reproductive healthcare and climate change insurance as top priorities.

"Climate change insurance, I'm not sure what that is," said Fortunato, who told The Center Square his priorities are focused on reducing regulations and increasing competition to bring costs down.

With less than three months to go until the November election, Fortunato thinks he has a shot.

"We're both broke and she, [Kuderer] spent all that money and didn't cross the 50% threshold which is kind of interesting," Fortunato said.

According to the PDC website, Fortunato still has $21,000 unspent from contributions to his campaign.

Kuderer has $78,000 remaining unspent from her contributions ahead of Tuesday's primary.