Vermont Governor Phil Scott announced Commissioner Mike Pieciak will be stepping away from his role leading the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation (DFR) next month to pursue other opportunities.
Pieciak was appointed to lead the consumer watchdog agency by Gov. Scott in January 2017.
He joined DFR in 2014 as deputy commissioner of the Securities Division, appointed by Gov. Peter Shumlin.
In addition to his duties at DFR, in 2018 Pieciak was elected president of the North American Securities Administrators Association and served a five-year term on the Securities and Exchange Commission Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee in Washington, D.C.
Deputy Commissioner Kevin Gaffney will serve as interim commissioner following Pieciak’s departure on May 16.
Vermont Department of Financial Regulation
Gov. Scott said Pieciak advocated for consumers and worked to strengthen the state’s financial services industry In his eight years of service to the state. Under his leadership, DFR recouped $13 million for Vermonters, including a record $1.8 million settlement with a South Carolina insurance company for selling unapproved and inadequate health insurance policies to Vermont college students.
Pieciak also expanded the department’s supervision of online securities trading and cryptocurrency platforms during his tenure. Earlier this year, a DFR probe of the digital-asset company BlockFi led to a multi-state $100 million settlement.
With the onset of the pandemic, Pieciak and DFR headed the state’s COVID-19 modeling and he has appeared regularly at COVID press briefings. DFR also required health insurers to cover the cost of testing and treatment for COVID-19 and directed premium relief of over $25 million back to Vermonters. Additionally, Pieciak led a volunteer team of 20 DFR employees who administered $32 million of COVID hazard pay grants to 20,000 front-line Vermont workers. The program was created and administered in just over 10 weeks during the first year of the pandemic.
In 2019, DFR explicitly prohibited insurers from using age to deny gender-affirming care to Vermont youth. Pieciak also instituted a series of initiatives to address senior financial abuse.
Topics Vermont
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