South Carolina Director Farmer Honored with NAIC's President's Award

Ray Farmer, director of the South Carolina Department of Insurance and immediate past president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), was recognized this week with the NAIC President's Award for Distinguished NAIC Leadership.

Mr. Farmer received the honor from NAIC President and Commissioner of the Florida Department of Insurance David Altmaier during the opening session of the NAIC's national conference in San Diego.

The NAIC President's Award is given at the discretion of the current NAIC president and honors an NAIC member who has shown exemplary leadership, has a sustained length of industry service, and has contributed to advancing the mission of the NAIC.

"Director Farmer has displayed exceptional leadership at the NAIC as he navigated the organization through a global pandemic, spearheaded the special committee on race and insurance, and served on the leadership teams for climate and resiliency, technology, data, privacy, and cyber security as well as several other priority initiatives," Mr. Altmaier said.

Following the presentation of the award, Mr. Altmaier announced that it would be renamed in Mr. Farmer's honor.

"It was the unanimous opinion of the NAIC officers that leadership examples such as the ones Director Farmer set for all of us and has displayed during his 53 years of industry service are truly profiles in courage that should be memorialized well beyond handing out this award," Mr. Altmaier said. "Today, I proclaimed that the President's Award be renamed the Raymond G. Farmer Award for Exceptional Leadership, and it is the award to be presented for exceptional NAIC leadership from this day forward."

Also during this week's meeting, the NAIC announced that its Financial Regulation Standards and Accreditation (F) Committee voted to accredit the South Carolina Department of Insurance as well as the departments of insurance of Hawaii and Kansas.

To become accredited, a state insurance department must submit to a full on-site accreditation review by a team of independent consultants. Accredited departments undergo comprehensive, independent review every 5 years.