How Quinn Is Betting On Insurance Companies To Rescue Illinois' Economy
From the Crain's Chicago Business
Gov. Pat Quinn's insurance director wants to conjure more of those special moments that brought an NBA Hall of Famer and promises of hundreds of jobs to Chicago.
Andrew Boron, director of the Illinois Department of Insurance, is pushing legislation that would provide $5 million to a new state corporation chaired by Mr. Boron to recruit out-of-state insurers. The money would be siphoned from the fees insurers and insurance brokers pay to fund the state's regulation of them. He wants to replicate the success the department had in wooing EquiTrust Life Insurance Co. from suburban Des Moines, Iowa, which is a national hub for life insurers.
In January, Mr. Boron, Mr. Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined former basketball great Earvin “Magic” Johnson, whom EquiTrust's owner, Chicago-based Guggenheim Partners, named “controlling shareholder” of EquiTrust, to trumpet the headquarters move. At the time, EquiTrust CEO Jeff Lange said Chicago would gain at least 200 jobs and possibly more than 1,000 eventually from the relocation.
Still, the effort to finance a new marketing arm with industry funds is a puzzling gambit for a department that doesn't have enough staff to perform regular financial examinations of insurers, often forcing companies to pay extra to third-party firms to perform those duties. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the department's staff numbered close to 400, but cutbacks during the Ryan and Blagojevich administrations shrank the agency dramatically. Today it employs 258.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Crain's Chicago Business
Gov. Pat Quinn's insurance director wants to conjure more of those special moments that brought an NBA Hall of Famer and promises of hundreds of jobs to Chicago.
Andrew Boron, director of the Illinois Department of Insurance, is pushing legislation that would provide $5 million to a new state corporation chaired by Mr. Boron to recruit out-of-state insurers. The money would be siphoned from the fees insurers and insurance brokers pay to fund the state's regulation of them. He wants to replicate the success the department had in wooing EquiTrust Life Insurance Co. from suburban Des Moines, Iowa, which is a national hub for life insurers.
In January, Mr. Boron, Mr. Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined former basketball great Earvin “Magic” Johnson, whom EquiTrust's owner, Chicago-based Guggenheim Partners, named “controlling shareholder” of EquiTrust, to trumpet the headquarters move. At the time, EquiTrust CEO Jeff Lange said Chicago would gain at least 200 jobs and possibly more than 1,000 eventually from the relocation.
Still, the effort to finance a new marketing arm with industry funds is a puzzling gambit for a department that doesn't have enough staff to perform regular financial examinations of insurers, often forcing companies to pay extra to third-party firms to perform those duties. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the department's staff numbered close to 400, but cutbacks during the Ryan and Blagojevich administrations shrank the agency dramatically. Today it employs 258.
Read more in our daily News Update...