Insurance Industry Says More Workforce Training Needed
Dec. 20--With thousands of employees due to retire over the next decade, the state should consider funding workforce development programs at local colleges, insurance lobbyists told a legislative forum Monday.
"By next year, 25 percent of the industry is going to be 5 to 10 years away from retirement," said Hugh Barrett, who works in government relations for Mass Mutual, a life insurer with 1,800 workers in Connecticut.
Barrett expressed envy for state spending on training manufacturing workers. The state authorized $17.8 million in borrowing in 2011 to start manufacturing programs at three community colleges.
Barrett spoke at a public forum sponsored by the legislature's insurance committee attended by lobbyists for health insurers, property and casualty insurers, captive insurers, Mass Mutual, small businesses and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, as well as the head of the state's Obamacare exchange.
Sen. Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, convened the forum Monday morning.
Eric George, a lobbyist for property-casualty insurers, asked legislators to talk to the state's Insurance Department before drafting legislation.
He said that sometimes the legislature raises bills that respond to just one constituent's complaint.
"Is this a systemic issue or is it a one-off," he said they should ask the insurance regulators. "If it is a one-off, the department has many tools to hold the company's feet to the fire."
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Kelly said after the meeting that having the Department of Economic and Community Development work with UConn on insurance workforce development is a good idea. He called the whole discussion a productive meeting.
Jim Wadleigh, head of the state's Obamacare exchange, said developing insurance talent is more than minting more actuaries. He said innovation comes with information technology -- programmers, analysts, data analytics -- and he's concerned that Connecticut is not capturing those jobs in significant numbers.
"Right now we see a lot of outsourcing of those functions outside of our country," he said.
"I'd like to see it stay here," Kelly agreed.
Keith Stover, lobbyist for the Connecticut Association of Health Plans, responded, "In my experience, companies do respond to incentives." He suggested that legislators invite executives from major insurance companies, health and property casualty, and listen to them about why they make the decisions to put employees where they do.
The forum also briefly addressed the problem that steady increases in health insurance premiums causes for companies, which shoulder much of those costs for their employees.
Jennifer Herz, who lobbies for CBIA on health issues, said she thinks a health policy board should be part of the mandate decision making process, so legislators can have more cost-benefit information before they decide to require coverage, which in turn, makes premiums more costly.
She said a requirement to cover 3D mammograms -- a technology considered experimental by most national insurers -- "easily sailed through" last year, despite adding $20 million to the state's cost of providing insurance to its employees and their spouses.
She acknowledged that voting against adding mandates is tough, because these issues "tug at your heart strings. No one wants to be the one to vote against any condition or service."
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