New Jersey’s state comptroller has launched a sweeping investigation into the insurance empire of George Norcross, a prominent Democratic power broker, focusing on whether his firm unfairly profited from public contracts and blurred the lines between business and politics.
At the heart of the probe are two closely linked companies: Conner Strong & Buckelew, one of the nation’s largest insurance brokerages, and PERMA Risk Management Services, which manages public health insurance funds for local governments and school districts.
While Conner Strong & Buckelew acts as the insurance broker and underwriter, PERMA is responsible for the day-to-day management of these funds. The comptroller alleges that although the two companies claim to be separate, they have actually operated “as one entity,” both owned by the same parent company and working in tandem to control the majority of New Jersey’s public health insurance pools.
According to the comptroller’s report, Conner Strong & Buckelew and PERMA together managed or administered nine out of ten joint health insurance funds in the state, giving them significant influence over how public employee health benefits were handled.
The investigation found that this arrangement allowed the companies to steer millions of dollars in contracts to themselves and their affiliates, often without proper competitive bidding or transparency. The report also alleges that the firms failed to disclose conflicts of interest to state regulators, violating public contracting laws.
The Office of the State Comptroller says this “covert takeover” of public insurance funds by private interests poses a serious risk to public trust and the responsible use of taxpayer dollars. The investigation was triggered by concerns that political connections were being used to benefit financially from public business, undermining fair competition and potentially costing taxpayers more.
Norcross and his companies deny any wrongdoing, insisting they have followed all laws and procedures and that their work has saved money for public entities. The investigation is ongoing.
Conner Strong is one of the nation’s largest insurance firms and was founded by Norcross, who took a leave of absence from the brokerage last year after he was indicted on unrelated racketeering charges that were later dismissed by a Superior Court judge.
A Norcross spokesman said this week he has not returned to the firm.
On Wednesday, the New Jersey Monitor reported that the funds and the brokerage are now seeking an investigation of the watchdog in what is effectively a counter-attack.
“Pursuant to OSC’s current policy, memorialized in both written correspondence and in recorded statements, OSC officials have repeatedly insisted that they are entitled to review attorney-client privileged materials involving the subjects of OSC inquiries, without providing any credible legal basis justifying OSC’s access to such sacrosanct information,” Deborah Gramiccioni, counsel to Conner Strong and PERMA, said in a Tuesday letter to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.
A separate letter from the chairs of six health insurance funds to Murphy, legislative leaders, and regulators called for the comptroller to apologize and retract his report. They also called for a state investigation into the office and legislation to “rein in this out-of-control agency and end these abuses of power.”