Marguerite Salazar is giving up the Colorado insurance commissioner title.
Salazar, who has been serving both as commissioner and as executive director of the state's Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) since July, will focus on running DORA, according to officials at the Colorado Division of Insurance.
Michael Conway to serve
Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, appointed Salazar to the commissioner post in 2013.
Hickenlooper has named Michael Conway to serve as the interim insurance commissioner.
"While I have enjoyed serving as Insurance Commissioner, it gives me great pleasure to see the team that will continue to regulate the business of insurance for the State of Colorado," said Director Salazar. "I couldn't be more pleased with the selection of Michael Conway. He has the ability to reach into the finer points of issues affecting consumers and industry, whether it is title insurance, health insurance or the details of legislation. It's a skill that always helps resolve problems."
Conway has been the insurance division's deputy commissioner for consumer and compliance services since March 2016.
Before that, he was an assistant attorney general in the insurance unit at the state attorney general's office.
He has been involved in the liquidation of Colorado's nonprofit, member-owned Affordable Care Act CO-OP carrier, including efforts to get the federal government to make the payments promised by managers of the Affordable Care Act risk corridors program.
Conway has also been involved in efforts to have issuers of life insurance and annuity contribute to state guaranty association assessment funds when issuers of long-term care insurance (LTCI) fail. Because many states classify LTCI as a health insurance line, guaranty association have often relied solely on assessments on health insurers to cover the cost of protecting insolvent LTCI issuers' policyholders.
Allison Bell is the insurance editor for ThinkAdvisor. She can be reached at abell@alm.com or on Twitter at @Think_Allison.
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