MIKE CHANEY PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: Oct. 4

 Contact: Morgan Shands (601)-366-8683

 

Chaney Discusses Insurance Issues with MSU Students

 

STARKVILLE, MS – Mike Chaney, Republican nominee for Commissioner of Insurance, spoke on the campus of Mississippi State University at a Meet the Candidates forum hosted by the College of Business and Industry.

 

“The job of Insurance Commissioner is to be a regulatory agency for 2.9 million Mississippians and not for any special interest group, be it personal injury lawyers on one side or big insurance on the other,” Chaney said.  “As Commissioner, my job will be to make insurance available, affordable and accountable to the consumer.”

 

“Insurance holds the economy together,” he said, “If you don’t have insurance, you can’t finance it.  If you can’t finance it, you can’t build it.”

 

Chaney also addressed the state of insurance specifically on the Gulf Coast.  “People can not afford to pay insurance premiums that are higher than their mortgage.”  “People who live on the Coast live there for the jobs, not the scenic view,” he said, “if the Coast economy goes down, the rest of the State goes with it.”

 

Mike Chaney is currently a key member of the Senate Insurance Committee and an author of the 2007 Windpool Insurance bill.  He co-authored the Teacher Insurance bill giving our school teachers health insurance.  Mike has been a champion of the Rural Fire Truck program to lower rural fire insurance premiums.  In 1991, when Mike’s small business could no longer afford Worker’s Compensation Insurance, he joined with two other small businesses to form the first MMA Workers Compensation Insurance Pool.  Today, the pool serves over 270 member companies and more than 20,000 employees – with rates lower today than they were in 1991.

 

Noticeably absent at the forum was the Democratic candidate for Insurance Commissioner who was invited but declined.  According to the schedule posted on his website, he had no events scheduled for Wednesday, October 3rd.