Connecticut Senate Confirms Josh Hershman as Insurance Commissioner

The Connecticut Senate voted unanimously last week to confirm Josh Hershman as the state’s insurance commissioner, ending a months-long interim stretch that began when his predecessor retired in November. For the roughly 3.6 million Connecticut residents buying health, homeowners, or auto coverage, the confirmation puts a permanent face on the agency that decides whether your premium hikes get approved.

Hershman has been running the Connecticut Insurance Department on a temporary basis since December. The unanimous Senate vote was the formal stamp of approval he needed. Under state law, confirmation requires a majority vote in either the Senate or the House, and senators didn’t make him wait long.

From the C-suite back to the public sector

His resume is a bit unusual for a state regulator. Most recently, Hershman served as CEO of Immigrant Life Insurance Company of America. Before that, he spent three years as deputy commissioner and chief operating officer of the Insurance Department itself, from 2019 to 2022, where he led work on how artificial intelligence affects insurance underwriting and pushed for what he called data-driven regulatory modernization. He also practiced law, with a focus on complex business planning and litigation. He lives in Guilford.

So he’s been on both sides of the table. That matters, because the insurance commissioner’s job is essentially a referee’s job, one where industry relationships can be either an asset or a liability depending on how you use them.

What he’s promised

Consumer protection. Hershman said it twice in a November interview with the CT Mirror, and he said it plainly: “Focusing on consumer protection is the top priority of the insurance commissioner; consumer protection from the top down to the bottom will be my No. 1 priority.”

Affordability is the other pressure point. Connecticut homeowners have watched their insurance bills climb for several years running, and that’s a real problem in a state where carrying a mortgage already requires a substantial income. Hershman said he wants to bring more innovation into the market to help push costs down. “Affordability is a huge issue in the state of Connecticut when it comes to health insurance, homeowners’ insurance,” he told CT Mirror. “Every insurance is expensive and I’m going to do my very best to try to alleviate the affordability issue in Connecticut.”

That’s an ambitious promise. State insurance commissioners can influence rate filings and push insurers to justify increases, but they can’t conjure competition in markets where it doesn’t exist. The Fairfield County homeowners’ market has been particularly stressed, with carriers tightening underwriting standards for older homes near the coast. Anyone who has tried to shop coverage in Greenwich or Westport over the last couple of years knows that it isn’t easy or cheap.

Stepping into a big job

Hershman succeeded Andrew Mais, who led the department for nearly seven years before announcing his retirement last fall. That’s a long tenure by state government standards, and Mais built a reputation for steady management during a period that included the COVID-era disruptions to the health insurance market.

Gov. Ned Lamont backed the pick. “Josh Hershman’s experience and broad understanding of the insurance industry and the regulatory framework that it operates within will serve him well as commissioner,” Lamont said when he nominated Hershman last year.

“This confirmation represents an important milestone, and I am grateful for the trust placed in me,” Hershman said in a statement Friday. “Each day reinforces how essential our work is to Connecticut residents and businesses.”

Not a bad line for a bureaucratic press release. But the proof will come in the rate cases.

What to watch

The department will face some hard decisions this year. Health insurers are preparing their 2027 rate filings, and the broader national uncertainty around federal health policy is already making actuaries nervous. On the property side, climate-related underwriting risk is reshaping what carriers will write and at what price along Connecticut’s shoreline. Hershman’s background in AI and data-driven regulation could be genuinely relevant here, if he moves aggressively on modernizing how the department analyzes insurer data.

The unanimous Senate vote suggests he has goodwill to spend. How he uses it on behalf of Connecticut policyholders is the question worth tracking.