Atwater backs interviews of Hager, Bragg for OIR job

BY THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

State Rep. Bill Hager and Jeffrey Bragg, who ran a federal terrorism risk insurance program, will be the only applicants interviewed during a state Cabinet meeting Tuesday to become Florida's next insurance commissioner. State Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater decided Thursday to stick with the two candidates, who were advanced Wednesday during a meeting of Cabinet aides. "After completing several interviews with impressive candidates for the position of commissioner of the Office of Insurance Regulation, CFO Atwater is ready to begin the process of Cabinet-directed interviews with candidates Representative Bill Hager and Jeffrey Bragg," Atwater spokeswoman Ashley Carr said in a prepared statement. Atwater and Gov. Rick Scott have to jointly recommend the next insurance commissioner before other Cabinet members vote. Scott proposed Bragg, while Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested interviewing Hager, a Delray Beach Republican who was once Iowa's appointed insurance commissioner. Bragg, a Palm Harbor resident nominated by Scott, was executive director of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Terrorism Risk Insurance Program from 2003 to 2014. Before that, Bragg spent a little under two years as a senior vice president at Zurich Risk Management in New Jersey. In 1981, Bragg was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he oversaw the National Flood Insurance Program and worked with Congress to terminate the federal riot reinsurance program. The insurance-commissioner job became open after longtime Commissioner Kevin McCarty announced he would step down May 2. The job, advertised as paying up to $200,000 a year, attracted 55 applicants.