Foley blasts Malloy over insurance commissioner’s frequent travel

Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Thomas Leonardi. Contributed photo.

Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Thomas Leonardi. Contributed photo.

The insurance capital has an ambassador: his name is Thomas Leonardi.

Leonardi’s frequent travel out of state as Connecticut’s insurance commissioner — a pattern of 115 tips in three years chronicled by the Hartford Courant — on Monday drew major criticism from a bona fide former ambassador, Tom Foley.

Foley blasted Leonardi in a statement from his gubernatorial campaign, saying that the absentee commissioner’s gallivanting is emblematic of the lax culture of state bureaucracy under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

“It’s not surprising that one of Governor Malloy’s appointees would expect industry organizations and others to pay for 115 trips to far-flung reaches of the globe, including Europe, Asia, the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands and Bermuda,” Foley said. “It’s also not surprising that Governor Malloy is aware of his insurance commissioner’s schedule and approves of it.”

While professional organizations picked up the tab for Leonardi’s travel, Foley said he still has a problem with the practice.

“The governor’s appointee is only following the example of his boss Governor Malloy, who demanded that the UConn Foundation pay for his travel to Davos, Switzerland, to hang with big-shots for a weekend and then again for a political trip to China,” Foley said.

Mark Bergman, a senior campaign adviser to Malloy, defended the trips in remarks to Hearst Connecticut Media.

“Connecticut is the insurance capital with thousands of jobs depending that the fact that we can compete in the global market place,” Bergman said. “Perhaps Tom Foley doesn’t want to compete in a global marketplace to keep these middle class jobs in Connecticut but Governor Malloy does and will continue fighting to make sure Connecticut’s insurance industry can compete in the global marketplace.”

Neil Vigdor