"I thought every day was Insurance Day" at the Capitol, Phil Sherwood, legislative director for the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, said after the rally. "They've generally got what they've wanted."
Hartford Courant - May 3, 2007
By DIANE LEVICK
Courant Staff Writer
May 3 2007
Many people think insurers already wield a mighty influence over Connecticut, but the companies and legislators rallied Wednesday in Hartford to promote a better climate for the industry whose job growth here lags some other states.
Connecticut has the highest concentration of insurance jobs in the nation, though it is far from the fastest-growing. The industry's employment in the state grew 2.4 percent from 1995 to 2005, compared with 8.8 percent in Iowa, an aggressive recruiter of insurance business.
Connecticut needs to concentrate on staying competitive, and "I think there's a huge opportunity for the state to really focus on this issue and continue to create an environmentthat is attractive to new business and business expansion," Aetna chief executive Ronald A. Williams said.
He spoke at Connecticut Insurance Day in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, a rally attended by at least 200 employees of insurance companies.
Downstairs from the rally, critics of the industry called for more dramatic health care reform than insurers support, and protested high executive pay by forming a human billboard to show the size of Williams' $32 million 2006 compensation package.
"I thought every day was Insurance Day" at the Capitol, Phil Sherwood, legislative director for the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, said after the rally. "They've generally got what they've wanted."
The protesters, organized by the labor-community coalition Citizens for Economic Opportunity, stood in a row, each person wearing a T-shirt with one numeral, to spell out "$32,000,000." The amount includes stock-related units that Aetna paid to Williams.
Sherwood, whose organization is a member of the coalition, said the protesters "are looking to make the comfortable uncomfortable today."
The message was similar to a protest last Thursday at Aetna, where participants said industry executives' big pay helps make health insurance unaffordable for many people.
Aetna declined to comment on Wednesday's demonstration.
Williams and other speakers at Insurance Day weren't advocating any specific legislation, but instead tried to underscore the importance of the industry to the state's economy.
Williams said Aetna, with more than 7,000 employees in Connecticut, pays more than $1 billion a year in payroll and taxes here. When the industry's employment, charity and volunteerism are considered, "we clearly are a very positive force in the community," he said.
The industry has remained a fairly stable part of Connecticut's economy, employing nearly 68,000 people in the state and responsible for 91,000 more jobs in other businesses, according to a study publicized in December and discussed at the rally.
"We're holding our own but we cannot be complacent," said Jeff Blodgett, vice president of research at the Connecticut Economic Research Center, which did the study.
"We can no longer take for granted that we'll always have insurance here," Blodgett said. "We need to be much more cognizant of the role of insurance and the issues that affect its growth and competitiveness."
The study was done last year for Insure Connecticut's Future - a group of insurers - and the Connecticut Insurance and Financial Services Cluster, a state-corporate partnership to foster those industries. Those groups and the Insurance Association of Connecticut organized Wednesday's event.
Legislators from both parties said they appreciated the insurance industry's role in Connecticut.
"We are dedicated to retaining that number one goal, of being the number one insurance state in the country, but at the same time we are cognizant that we don't want to throw the consumer under the bus," said Sen. Joseph J. Crisco Jr., D-Woodbridge. He is co-chairman of the General Assembly's insurance and real estate committee.
Connecticut's new insurance commissioner, Thomas R. Sullivan, read a proclamation by Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who declared Wednesday "Connecticut Insurance Day." It noted that "Connecticut has been the leader in the insurance industry for 200 years," but that "other locations are challenging our rightful heritage as the Insurance Capital of the World."
Contact Diane Levick at dlevick@courant.com.
Copyright 2007, Hartford Courant
