Connecticut is on the lookout
for a new insurance commissioner following the sudden resignation
of Thomas Sullivan.
After holding the position as
the US state’s insurance regulator for over three years, Sullivan
resigned amid condemnation of his approval of rate increases by
Anthem, a unit of WellPoint, one of the country’s largest health
insurers.
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Indicative of the spiralling
cost of health insurance in the US, rate increases for new coverage
approved by Sullivan average 22.9% and reach as high as 47%.
Existing policyholders face a 16.6% average increase.
Among the most outspoken
critics of the rate increases was Connecticut attorney general
Richard Blumenthal.
“When the Insurance
Department should have improved oversight of staggering rate
increases, it relaxed its review, disregarding a $1m federal grant
to enable stronger scrutiny,” Blumenthal said in a
statement.
Slack oversight is something
the New York State Insurance Department cannot be accused
of.
Under new powers granted
recently, the department went in with a big axe in October,
slashing rate increase by a number of health insurers by up to
almost a quarter. However, this still left increases of up to
24%.
“We are not happy about any
increases in these difficult times, and we lowered increases as
much as we prudently could,” said Troy Oechsner, the department’s
deputy superintendent for health.
“We had to balance reducing the requested increases
against the need to ensure companies remain solvent,” he
added.
