Ohio Insurance Commissioner Resigns; Governor Appoints Deputy Director as Successor
April 1, 2017 by http://www3.ambest.com/ambv/bestnews/newscontent.aspx?AltSrc=104&RefNum=198849
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Insurance Director Mary Taylor has stepped down after six years, effective March 31, and Gov. John Kasich is filling the post with former Deputy Director Jillian Froment, who will assume the director’s post April 1.
Taylor will continue to serve as Ohio’s lieutenant governor and in February formed a campaign committee, which has begun accepting contributions for a gubernatorial run in 2018. Taylor said her resignation was prudent “given her current exploration of how she can best serve Ohioans after her current service as lieutenant governor ends next year,” according to a March 31 announcement.
Kasich appointed Taylor to the insurance director’s post after she ran as his lieutenant governor in the 2010 gubernatorial campaign. “I am proud of the work we in the insurance department have done to serve the people of Ohio through all types of economic conditions and under the pressure of rapid changes that challenged the health care market,” Taylor said in a statement.
Captive insurance took flight under Taylor’s watch. Kasich signed House Bill 117 into law in 2014 and Taylor appointed Tracy Snow as the first chief of the Office of Captive Insurance (Best’s News Service, Nov. 14, 2014).
Froment has been the deputy director in the Department of Insurance since 2011. Kasich’s office said Froment has served in several high-profile panels within the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, including the cybersecurity task force and the unclaimed life insurance benefits working group. She also will serve on the new Innovation and Technology Task Force, which will have oversight of NAIC’s big data and cybersecurity work. The new panel meets for the first time during the NAIC’s Spring National Meeting in Denver on April 10.
“Jillian has worked closely with Mary since the beginning of the administration and has a deep knowledge of the insurance industry and the department and I am confident that she will be able to continue Mary’s record of steady, professional management,” Kasich said in a statement.
Froment will inherit a state Taylor’s office said is the sixth-largest insurance market nationwide and the 17th-largest in the world.
(By Thomas Harman, Washington Bureau manager, BestWeek: Tom.Harman@ambest.com)