Gov. Malloy Nominates Simsbury Woman to Head State Insurance Dept.

Gov. Dannel Malloy announced Friday that he’s nominating Katharine “Katie” L. Wade of Simsbury, a former lobbyist an official with Cigna Corp., as the next Connecticut Insurance Commissioner.

She has decades of experience in the insurance industry and is the daughter-in-law of a major Democratic Party fundraiser in Connecticut.

“Katie’s experience in the insurance industry and her familiarity with the federal government and state governments around the nation will be a benefit in our efforts to protect consumers and help the industry grow here in Connecticut,” Malloy said in a news release issued Friday afternoon by the Governor’s Office.

Wade is daughter-in-law of James A. Wade Jr., a Hartford lawyer as well as “self-described ‘pal’ and sometime lunch companion of Malloy who has been involved at the highest level of Connecticut Democratic politics,” according to an article in the Hartford Courant.

Malloy and Wade also appeared at a news conference to announce the nomination. The statement said Wade will start work Tuesday, March 24. Wade is 49 and will make $149,000 in the job running a department with 159 employees and a budget of about $29 million, according to the CT Mirror news website.

“I would like to thank Governor Malloy and Lt. Governor Wyman for the appointment as Insurance Commissioner,” Wade said in the same news release. “It is a great honor to serve the State of Connecticut. My primary focus will be to protect insurance policyholders by overseeing the financial condition and market practices of licensed insurers. Because of the importance of the insurance industry to the state, national, and global economies, I also will ensure that Connecticut maintains an appropriate and relevant national and international regulatory profile.”

When she was with Cigna, the news release said, Wade “oversaw all work before executive and legislative branches in the federal government, as well as those in all 50 states. She helped oversee the implementation of laws and regulations, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), product filings, regulatory reporting, market conduct examinations, and producer licensing.”

Various news accounts have identified Wade as a former lobbyist. In her most recent job with Cigna, the news release said, Wade was the company’s “vice president of public policy, government affairs and U.S. compliance.” In that role, she led a team “to coordinate all federal and state legislative and regulatory affairs, public policy, and compliance operations for health, group life, and disability businesses,” according to the news release.

According to Ken Dixon, columnist and reporter for the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport and other Hearst newspapers, said Wade’s appointment rewards “omnipresent Democratic fundraiser and state party stalwart,” her father-in-law.

“Wade’s Linked In site says she last worked in 2013,” Dixon wrote. “Jim Wade, a longtime partner at Robinson & Cole, has contributed nearly $13,000 to state Democrats dating back to the late-1990s, according to Federal Election Commission records, including about $5,000 to the Democratic State Central Committee.”

Wade replaces acting Commissioner Anne Melissa Dowling, who was acting commissioner for four years and had run the office when the previous commissioner, Thomas B. Leonardi, was out of town (he frequently spoke as an insurance expert), according to the CT Mirror. The Connecticut Insurance Department “regulates what is by some measures the largest insurance industry in the nation,” the CT Mirror reported.

Wade also served for four years as Cigna’s director of health policy, developing company public policy strategy on ” market and legislative/regulatory issues and third party outreach,” the news release said.

“Insurance has been a critical segment of Connecticut’s economy for nearly two centuries, employing thousands of our residents as it’s enmeshed in the fabric of our state,” Malloy said. “We must work together to ensure consumers are protected while business thrives. That means growing jobs in this sector for our workers as we ensure that Connecticut’s families have affordable and reliable insurance coverage.”

“When asked whether he was concerned about perceived impropriety in appointing the daughter-in-law of a prominent Democratic fundraiser, Malloy answered, ‘No,’” the CT Mirror reported. Malloy said he picked Wade from a pool of 15 finalist candidates, some of whom he invited to apply for the job.