Meet The Commissioner
Wayne Goodwin is a native of Hamlet, North Carolina. where his family was active in agriculture and banking. He excelled in the local Richmond County public schools and became both the first Morehead Scholar and William Randolph Hearst / U.S. Senate Scholar from Richmond Senior High School, and attended Governor’s School in mathematics.
Wayne graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Honors in Political Science. He then went on to graduate from the UNC School of Law, working at the Institute of Government during his studies.
After returning full-time to his native Richmond County, he worked in private legal practice for 13 years and started three successful small businesses.
In 1996 Wayne was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives. During his four terms in the North Carolina General Assembly, he represented Richmond, Scotland, Montgomery and Stanly counties. He sponsored legislation that led to greater incentives for economic development in rural areas, increases in education spending, improved health care and insurance laws, and enhanced public and occupational safety for first responders and others, security, election and campaign finance reforms, and consumer protection. Among many other honors, he was presented the Leadership in Government Award by Common Cause and the A+ Legislator Award by the NC Association of Educators (NCAE).
In 2005, then-Insurance Commissioner Jim Long appointed Wayne to be his Assistant Commissioner of Insurance for North Carolina. In that capacity he also served as the Assistant State Fire Marshal. In his role as Assistant Commissioner, he worked hand-in-hand with the Commissioner to protect consumers and to promote a fair insurance market. As Assistant State Fire Marshal, Wayne successfully fought for increased annual grant funds for volunteer fire departments statewide.
North Carolina voters elected Wayne in November 2008 as the first new Commissioner of Insurance in 24 years.
As Insurance Commissioner, Wayne has ordered rate cuts, rate freezes and refunds that combined provide savings in excess of $545 Million for automobile drivers statewide, and ordered reductions in workers’ comp rates, thereby saving at least $115 Million for NC businesses. Wayne coordinated historic rate refunds of $155.8 Million to 215,000 families with Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance, receiving both statewide and national attention for his work. His efforts required insurance companies to give up $800 Million of surplus in the coastal insurance wind pool, thus helping North Carolinians avert a statewide homeowners' insurance crisis, and he persuaded the legislature to expand and protect monetary grants for fire, rescue and EMS departments statewide. Through these and other efforts Goodwin helps keep homeowner's insurance rates as low as possible.
As North Carolina’s Commissioner of Insurance, Wayne has been a staunch advocate for preserving State’s authority and State’s regulatory rights, fighting the federal government on multiple fronts as Congress has tried to reduce state government primacy on insurance regulation.
Wayne has been a member and Sunday School teacher at First United Methodist Church in Rockingham for many years and is also an associate member at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh. Wayne is a member of the Kiwanis Club and various civic, non-profit and other Boards, including the NC Center for Voter Education, and is a past director for the Methodist Home for Children. His wife, State Rep. Melanie Wade Goodwin, served three terms in the legislature. The couple has two young children: a daughter, Madison, and a son, Jackson.
