Complainant wants the Delaware Public Integrity Commission to sanction Delaware’s insurance commissioner for unethical conduct and no-bid contracts. By Lee Williams A Lewes businessman has filed a complaint with the Delaware Public Integrity Commission accusing Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart of violating state law. Christian Hudson, a real estate entrepreneur, said he filed the complaint [...]
Archive for the ‘State Spending’ Category
Ethics complaint filed against Delaware Insurance Commissioner
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on May 25, 2010 | 2 Comments »
CRI EXCLUSIVE: Insurance Department’s biggest contractor evading taxes
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on May 11, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Regulatory Insurance Services receives $1 million per month from the Delaware Department of Insurance, but former staffers say the well-connected firm has been misclassifying its employees to avoid paying federal and state taxes for more than 16 years. By Lee Williams John Tinsley III is known as the “shadow commissioner” of Delaware’s Department of Insurance. [...]
How to fix Delaware’s captive insurance bureau
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 27, 2010 | 9 Comments »
Delaware’s unprofitable captive insurance bureau will continue to flounder, unlikely to see any new revenue dollars, unless there are substantive reforms, national experts say. By Lee Williams and Danny Russell Reputation is everything within the highly-competitive captive insurance industry. Firms looking to create a captive insurance company, which is a cost-saving form of self-insurance, are [...]
The Vermont model
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 19, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Vermont’s captive insurance division, which is 800-percent larger than Delaware’s captive bureau, runs leaner, produces more and pays its director and senior staff half as much. By Lee Williams and Danny Russell Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart, when defending the contractor she chose to head her captive insurance bureau and his $16,000 monthly salary, [...]
ANALYSIS: Fact checking the insurance commissioner’s testimony
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
By Lee Williams Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart and her staff testified for more than two hours Tuesday before a joint hearing of the House and Senate insurance committees about problems and concerns within the Department of Insurance – including many issues that were raised by the Caesar Rodney Institute as part of its [...]
The insurance commissioner’s second hearing
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
By Lee Williams The Delaware Department of Insurance’s highly-touted Captive Insurance bureau lost $100,000 last year, despite the more than $500,000 in combined salary paid to its top three appointees. “We’ve always been in the hole,” said Steve Kinion, an attorney who lives and works in Illinois, who was appointed director of the captive bureau [...]
Insurance commissioner ignores state procurement law
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 13, 2010 | 3 Comments »
The Delaware Office of Management and Budget has chastised the Department of Insurance for writing purchase orders – after the fact – for no-bid contracts worth more than a half-million taxpayer dollars. By Lee Williams Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart awarded a professional services contract last August worth up to $700,000 to a New [...]
Senate insurance committee chair puzzled by Insurance Commissioner’s pre-meeting, won’t attend
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
In an A1 story published Wednesday by News Journal reporter Jonathan Starkey, Sen. Patricia Blevins, D-Elsmere, who chairs the Senate’s insurance committee, said she finds Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart’s decision to hold her own pre-meeting meeting “puzzling.” Blevins added she will not attend Stewart’s meeting, which the insurance commissioner scheduled three hours before the [...]
Insurance Commissioner opens meeting to the public
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
From an e-mail CRI received Tuesday at 4:11 p.m. COMMISSIONER STEWART ANNOUNCES PUBLIC MEETING WITH LEGISLATORS TO DISCUSS DENIALS OF MEDICALLY NECESSARY TESTS Dover, April 6, 2010 – Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart announced today that a public meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 13th, with the members of the House and Senate [...]
BREAKING NEWS: Insurance commissioner wants secret meeting with lawmakers just hours before public hearings
Posted in State Spending, Transparency on April 6, 2010 | 6 Comments »
Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart wants to meet privately in her office with the House and Senate insurance committees at a meeting closed to the public. By Lee Williams Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart has scheduled a private meeting with the House and Senate insurance committees to be held behind closed doors, just [...]
