Corgi Insurance has hired Stuart Wilkinson as vice president of state government affairs, a state-level counterpart to the federal policy hire the AI-native carrier made last month, and one whose most recent job involved defending a disputed business model against a sustained wave of multi-state regulatory hostility.

Wilkinson joins from PrizePicks, the daily fantasy sports operator, where he served as director of government affairs during a period in which state gaming regulators in Illinois, Florida, New York, Arkansas and Kansas issued cease-and-desist orders against the company's core product, arguing its "pick'em" contests amounted to unlicensed sports betting rather than legal fantasy sports.

New York's gaming commission alone reached a roughly $15 million settlement with PrizePicks over contests it found violated state law, forcing the company to redesign its product around a peer-to-peer format to regain licensure in several states.

Before PrizePicks, Wilkinson held senior roles in Georgia state government, including deputy director of external affairs in the office of Governor Brian Kemp, and was previously a vice president at McGuireWoods Consulting representing corporate and nonprofit clients before state legislatures.

At Corgi, Wilkinson will help guide government affairs strategy as the company "expands its insurance products, enters new markets, and works with regulators and policymakers" across the country, it said.

Jeremy Eisemann, Corgi's head of global affairs, said insurance's status as "one of the most regulated industries in the country" made Wilkinson's mix of government and private-sector experience valuable as the company's footprint grows.

US insurance regulation sits primarily with individual states rather than federal agencies, meaning a state government affairs hire arguably carries more day-to-day operational weight for a carrier than federal policy work does. Corgi added a federal-focused policy hire, a former House Financial Services Committee senior counsel, last month, giving the company dedicated government affairs coverage at both levels within a matter of weeks.

For brokers watching Corgi's disintermediated, direct-to-founder model expand into new states, Wilkinson's specific background is worth noting: navigating a genuinely disputed product through hostile multi-state regulatory pushback is a distinct skill from routine compliance work, and hiring for it this early is a reasonable signal that Corgi expects its own novel model to draw comparable scrutiny as it scales.