FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
- Why are insurance companies campaigning to Connecticut residents?
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We’re concerned. Connecticut residents used to know that the insurance industry is essential to the state’s economy, and a part of their everyday lives, but in conversations at work with civic leaders and business associates – and at home with our friends and neighbors – we’ve learned we’ve lost that connection. Residents no longer realize that we are still one of the state’s largest industries, or that this fact is important.
- Why does it matter that insurance is one of the state’s largest industries?
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Because everyone is impacted by our presence in the state. In terms of employment, Connecticut has triple the U.S. average of insurance carrier jobs, and one job in insurance creates jobs in other Connecticut industries. Nearly 68,000 people work for insurance carriers in our state, creating another 91,000 jobs in other industries.
We also contribute millions of dollars each year to local nonprofit organizations, and our companies and employees make up one of the largest sources of state and local tax revenue in Connecticut. Our premium taxes alone added up to almost half (45%) of what all other private companies paid in corporate taxes in 2004 combined.
- But how does that impact me? We don’t all work in insurance.
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Many other companies in Connecticut do business with insurance companies, so if you work at a printing shop, accounting firm, restaurant, doctors’ office, architecture firm – or any other business-to-business or personal service company – it’s a good bet that insurance companies and their employees buy your products and services. In addition, we affect the schools your children attend, the hospitals your family needs, the museums and cultural attractions you visit and more. For most non-profit health, human service and cultural organizations in Connecticut, the insurance industry is a major source of funding. Our employees also generously contribute thousands of hours of time every year in their local communities, for almost every imaginable cause.
- Do insurance company tax contributions really reach me and my family?
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The taxes that go into the state’s general fund touch everyone in Connecticut, particularly through Municipal Aid funding.
These funds improve local roads, repair flood damage, upgrade the airports, expand libraries, support museums and entertainment attractions, help local departments of health protect communities, wire schools, provide property tax relief to veterans and the elderly, and so much more.
And since the insurance premium taxes total nearly half of what other private industries pay in corporate taxes combined, we are making an impact across the state.
- What kinds of nonprofit organizations do you support?
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Our charitable donations help families learn to read together, children with asthma to breathe easier, students of all ages improve their academic skills, adults to obtain work and life skills for greater success and children to share their theatrical talents with each other. We reach out to many others in such areas as the arts, education, health and both the economic and social well-being of Connecticut’s communities.
- Which insurance companies are involved in this campaign?
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Current ICF members include: Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, ConnectiCare, Genworth Financial, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, Lincoln Financial Group, The Phoenix Companies, Prudential Financial, and Travelers.
We also invited the Insurance Association of Connecticut and the Connecticut Insurance and Financial Services Cluster to be our partners in this effort, since they promote our industry everyday.
- Why are these companies coming together now? What do you hope to accomplish?
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In talking with each other, employees at these companies discovered they were not alone in noticing a disconnect with the general public. We all are very concerned that residents no longer see insurance as “Connecticut’s industry.” By reaching out together, we are aiming to reconnect with Connecticut citizens and to demonstrate that the industry is essential to retaining a better quality of life.
- It seems like insurance companies have been cutting, not creating jobs. Is this really a growth industry?
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There have been economic changes – job losses, mergers and acquisitions, globalization and increased regulation – that were felt particularly hard in Connecticut in the last decade. Throughout this time, the insurance industry remained Connecticut’s core industry and continued to employ more of our citizens than any other business sector.
Today, more than 100 insurance companies employ nearly 68,000 people, making this industry one of the state’s largest private employers.
And yes, there is growth ahead. One estimate projects the industry will grow 8% in Connecticut over the next six years. Travelers announced in July that 600 positions will be added in Hartford and Windsor.
- What would it take to keep creating insurance jobs in Connecticut?
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We already have the most important resource – the best–educated, most–productive workforce in the nation. But we have to make certain we maintain a positive business environment, or other states, competing aggressively for insurance business and jobs, might attract some of those jobs out-of-state.
- Why does insurance make up such a large part of Connecticut’s economy?
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With nearly 200 years of history here, the length of the time the industry has been in Connecticut is certainly a major factor. But it has continued to succeed here because of the wealth of knowledgeable and productive workers and the rich infrastructure the Northeast offers – from transportation to complementary industries to sources of capital to the close proximity of other U.S. and overseas markets that offer additional access to people, goods, services, business partners and customers.
- If the insurance industry has always been a part of Connecticut, why would that change?
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Two reasons – harmful changes in the cost of doing business in Connecticut, and aggressive recruiting from other states and countries. Increased business costs include some factors we can’t influence – the cost of energy, for example. Others, such as taxation as compared to other states, regulatory “red-tape,” or the ongoing availability of skilled, educated younger workers, will depend on decisions we make here in Connecticut.
Aggressive recruiting from states like Iowa and Vermont includes new business-friendly packages that help insurance companies decrease operating costs and cut regulatory red tape. Connecticut has to remain competitive to combat their marketing efforts.
- If the other states’ economic climates are so good, why not just make the move?
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Because Connecticut is our home, and we are exceedingly reluctant to give it up. Many of our companies have more than 100 years of history in this state. We’re raising families here, too, and we know that Connecticut is home to smart, productive, experienced people. We also have excellent and profitable relationships with businesses in our other Connecticut industries and a well-established infrastructure that keeps our firms humming. We want to keep our businesses growing, which is why we’re hearing from other locations in the first place, but we’d much prefer to keep them growing in Connecticut.
- But isn’t it always just going to cost more to do business in Connecticut?
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A stellar quality of life doesn’t come cheap, but there are always new ways and creative ideas for increasing a state’s – and an industry’s – competitiveness. Being knowledgeable about the competition and keeping on top of the latest thinking is what’s important...and certainly do-able in a state with the smartest and most productive workers in the nation.
