Picture Connecticut’s insurance  industry, with the city of Hartford  at the wheel, as a giant tractor-trailer  lumbering down the highway. Then  look at the Hawkeye State’s insurance  sector, that red sports car with Iowa  plates that’s growing larger in Connecticut’s rear-view mirror.

A new report released last week by Iowa’s insurance industry indicates that its growth in employment and wages has solidified its position as a leading insurance hub in the country relative to  other states, and has even outpaced No.  1 Connecticut in growth.

“Though (Connecticut is) bigger in  almost every category, one thing they  appear to be envious of is our growth,”  said Graham Cook, president of the Federation of Iowa Insurers, which commissioned Iowa State University to conduct the study.”Will we ever take over  their place as No. 1? I don’t know; it  sounds like a long putt to me. But we  certainly are gaining on it.”

According to the report, Iowa’s insurance carriers, agencies and brokers employ a total of 45,128 people and account for 2.6 percent of all Iowa jobs, double the share held in 1990. Iowa based insurance companies accounted for nearly 37,000 of those jobs.

A similar report released in December  in Connecticut found that while Connecticut maintains the highest share of gross state product and still leads the nation in the number of insurance jobs – more than 65,000 – Iowa and other states are increasing their insurance sectors “at a significantly faster rate.”

“Iowa, for example, has increased insurance carrier jobs by 8.8 percent over the last 10 years, while Connecticut’s job growth rate was just 2.2 percent,” according to the Connecticut report. Iowa ranks second to Connecticut in insurance jobs, wages and share of gross state product.

David Swenson, an ISU professor of economics who co-authored the Iowa report, said Iowa’s competitive position in the industry “has improved markedly over the past decade, as measured by employment, and the state has been able to maintain that position despite slow national growth in recent years.”

That growth brought increased wages to those workers as well, the study found. Between 1990 and 2005, real earnings per job in the insurance industry grew by $19,000, compared to $6,300 for all other Iowa job holders.

Swenson said Iowa’s insurance industry has the characteristics and value of a luster, which means that “it’s an industry that has a lot more horsepower than thers,” he said.

“This industry and others like it are always going to be competing for a skilled workforce, and one way to do that is to have a reputation for being a center with opportunity, a center for job growth and advancement.”

The study estimated that each new insurance job generates an additional 2.4 positions in other sectors of Iowa’s   economy, for a total annual impact of $3.9 billion in additional incomes. Those incomes generated an estimated $309.1 million in state and local taxes in 2006, according to the report.

The federation, the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa and the Iowa Insurance Institute paid ISU to conduct the study, which is the first of its type for the industry, Swenson said.

“We looked at it as an Iowa State University study, an opportunity to study an industry we wouldn’t otherwise have  been able to,” he said.”They looked at it as an opportunity to shine a little sunshine on their industry and to give them an academic foundation for making  some claims about the industry.”