Hours after Jay Inslee declared he won’t be a can­di­date for Gov­er­nor in 2024, Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er Mike Krei­dler pub­lished a state­ment announc­ing that he will also be exit­ing the exec­u­tive depart­ment when his cur­rent term ends in 2025.

Here’s his state­ment:

Wash­ing­ton State Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er Mike Krei­dler sent an email to agency staff today con­firm­ing that he will not seek re-election.

“Serv­ing along­side you as Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er for Wash­ing­ton state has been, and con­tin­ues to be, the great­est hon­or of my life,” said Krei­dler. “I’ve always said it was the best job I’ve ever had, and I still feel that way today.”

“The list of issues we’ve tack­led could go on and on, but at the end of the day, I think of the indi­vid­ual peo­ple we help—the thou­sands of fam­i­lies we’ve advo­cat­ed for, day after day. That, above all else, is what makes me the most proud of this agency and of all of you.”

“Now, it’s time for some­one else to step for­ward and car­ry on this agency’s impor­tant con­sumer pro­tec­tion work. I know that my suc­ces­sor will be in good hands with all of you help­ing to lead the way.”

“I intend to work just as hard for the rest of my term as I have for the last 22 years and remain as com­mit­ted as ever to our mis­sion. We have a lot of work left to do togeth­er and impor­tant ini­tia­tives already under­way, from increas­ing pre­mi­um trans­paren­cy for con­sumers to con­tin­u­ing to push for a robust, depend­able insur­ance market.”

“I know that the pan­dem­ic and last few years have been hard on many of you per­son­al­ly and I’m grate­ful for your resilien­cy and ded­i­ca­tion to our work. Indeed, it has been hard on all of us. Now, I wish you the very best and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to work along­side all of you.”

Krei­dler’s rela­tion­ships with the oth­er mem­bers of the exec­u­tive depart­ment or the Leg­is­la­ture soured after mul­ti­ple for­mer employ­ees came for­ward to doc­u­ment a his­to­ry of unpro­fes­sion­al con­duct and demean­ing com­ments. Gov­er­nor Inslee urged Krei­dler to resign, as did Speak­er Jink­ins and Leader Billig.

But Krei­dler refused. He has stayed in office and kept a low profile.

He did not appear at this year’s State of the State Address, for instance, and he has not been seen at many pub­lic or par­ty events.

In Jan­u­ary, Krei­dler’s office pub­licly released an “inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tion” of the Office of the Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er’s work­place culture.

This con­sist­ed of a work­place cul­ture assess­ment in which 20% of the staff were inter­viewed and 30% of the staff took a sur­vey. 82% of staff also par­tic­i­pat­ed in an anony­mous employ­ee engage­ment survey.

“Rough­ly one-third of employ­ees report­ed that one of the things they like least about work­ing at the OIC relates to the Com­mis­sion­er and either media-report­ed behav­ior and/or his work­ing style,” the report found (pages 7–8). 

“These employ­ees large­ly do not feel the Com­mis­sion­er lis­tens to employ­ees and makes auto­crat­ic deci­sions with­out input from employ­ees or con­cern for the impact of deci­sions on employ­ees,” the report continued. 

“Some employ­ees report­ed feel­ing ashamed of the Commissioner’s alleged behav­ior and believe he is resis­tant to being held account­able to rules oth­ers are expect­ed to fol­low rel­a­tive to accept­able work­place behavior.” 

“Sev­er­al employ­ees also cit­ed the ter­mi­na­tion of Jon Nos­ki, the cur­rent tele­work pol­i­cy, and lack of ade­quate safe­ty mea­sures dur­ing the height of the pan­dem­ic as rea­sons for their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the Commissioner.”

“Of note, while some felt the Chief Deputy shared some respon­si­bil­i­ty for these issues, oth­ers expressed belief that the Chief Deputy was doing the best he could under the cir­cum­stances and believe that he would have been ter­mi­nat­ed if he were to push back against the Commissioner.”

Krei­dler, sev­en­ty-nine, has been Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er since Jan­u­ary 2001 and is the longest tenured mem­ber of the exec­u­tive department.

He has spent most of his life in state gov­ern­ment. He joined the state House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 1977 and the state Sen­ate in 1985. In 1992, he was elect­ed to Con­gress. He served a sin­gle term, los­ing to Repub­li­can Randy Tate in 1994.

After sev­er­al years work­ing for the North­west Pow­er Plan­ning Coun­cil and then the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices’s Region 10 office, Krei­dler decid­ed to run for Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er when Deb­o­rah Senn left the job to run for U.S. Sen­ate. He won and has been con­tin­u­ous­ly reelect­ed ever since, often trounc­ing Repub­li­can oppo­nents by mas­sive margins.

But when Jan­u­ary 2025 rolls around, Krei­dler’s almost quar­ter cen­tu­ry tenure will end and Wash­ing­ton State will inau­gu­rate a new insur­ance commissioner.