BIG BUREAUCRAT BARBARA RICHARDSON
EVERYTHING IS BIGGER WITH BIG BUREAUCRAT BARBARA!
Everything is bigger with big government bureaucrat Barbara Richardson! Bigger government, bigger regulations, bigger DEI programs, bigger hold and processing times, and if she’s confirmed as the director of the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions (DIFI) - Arizonans will soon have bigger premiums!
The only thing that will shrink under her leadership as DIFI Director is the number of insurance companies that operate in Arizona - causing premiums to skyrocket and options to plummet.
BIGGER GOVERNMENT AND BIGGER REGULATIONS
Under Big Bureaucrat Barbara, the size of DIFI regulations will increase. In fact, she has already used the SERFF (System for Electronic Rate and Form Filing) system to abuse her power - essentially making laws and rules that increase the costs of premiums and make it harder to operate for insurers. When questioned about it at her first March 28th hearing, she lied to the state senate and said she didn’t do it, but she did.
Big Bureaucrat Barbara also claimed companies can object and negotiate with her rules without retaliation, but her troubled history in Nevada tells another story. In Nevada, she retaliated against and even attempted to ban a regulated entity from calling the Nevada Department of Insurance because the company objected to a demand that they make al change to a policy form they were not required to do by law.
What Big Bureaucrat Barbara WILL do is collaborate with massive insurance companies who support her radical big government agenda to pass laws and regulations that favor them. In fact, she already has! The only person who testified in favor of her record was a lobbyist who said that Barbara helped her get a policy change - something Big Bureaucrat Barbara claimed under oath she never did!
BIGGER DEI PROGRAMS
Big Bureaucrat Barbara loves Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs!
She was a member of the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) board of directors where she “studied” racism in premium pricing. One of her working groups even suggested implementing a bizarre plan to promote “equity” by using race to determine premium pricing! When she was asked about her involvement in using race to determine premium pricing at her first confirmation hearing, she lied and said she was just there “eating breakfast” even though NAIC lists her as board member who actively participated in DEI working groups.
If Big Bureaucrat Barbara is confirmed, it’s highly like she will support allowing insurers to engage in “equity-based rating” to determine premiums based on race not risk.
BIGGER HOLD AND PROCESSING TIMES
Under Big Bureaucrat Barbara’s leadership of DIFI, small business insurance agencies have found experienced unreasonably long wait times to get new licenses or have their existing licenses renewed. Before Big Bureaucrat Barbara took over, licenses took 2-7 days to process. Now they take nearly 30!
When questioned about this at her first confirmation hearing, Big Bureaucrat Barbara passed the buck and blamed it on her staffers. But as the acting Director of DIFI, it is her responsibility to make sure her agency’s license processing times are up to national standard of 5 days and not 6 times longer!
BIGGER PREMIUMS AND SMALLER INSURANCE MARKET
If Big Bureaucrat Barbara is confirmed, her record of over-regulation and favoritism towards big insurance companies will lead to HIGHER PREMIUMS FOR ARIZONA INSUREDS AND FEWER OPTIONS.