ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

Area governing entities are working on renewing insurance policies, and the City of Liberal did just that at its most recent meeting Tuesday.

“The City of Liberal’s total premium for this year is $1,116,569, which is an increase of approximately 3.5 percent over last year. This is a very favorable result, most cities and municipalities are seeing increases of 5 to even 15 percent, particularly with liability and worker’s compensation,” Finance Director Kristyn Reust said. “Staff took a proactive approach this year by conducting a detailed line-by-line review of all of our insured assets – we removed items we no longer own or no longer need insured, which helped offset costs and ensure we’re only paying for absolutely necessary coverage. While there were some increases in areas like liability and worker’s compensation, those were consistent with broader market trends. At the same time, we achieved reductions in a few different areas and kept property essentially flat. Overall, this reflects a balanced approach to maintaining strong coverage while actively managing costs. This is a strong renewal, below-market increase with proactive steps taken to help control costs while maintaining appropriate coverage.”

Iron Insurance Partners representative Katherine Taylor then shared more information with the Liberal City Commission.

“I will begin by discussing the marketing of your account, this is something we look at from time to time in order to make sure you’re in the best position possible. The City of Liberal has been with Employer’s Mutual Casualty for the past 20 years, maybe even longer since that’s as far back as my records go,” Taylor said. “Employer’s Mutual is the largest public entity writer in the state of Kansas, and they do a wonderful job, but we are also partnered with Travelers Insurance, which is the largest public entity writer in the U.S. Travelers runs a very good program, and due to some of the concerns Scarlette (Diseker) shared with me, we wanted to see if Travelers Insurance had a competitive program that would be better than what Employer’s Mutual has the city in. City of Liberal staff has gone to great lengths to facilitate this, and there is definitely extensive work involved. Staff was very helpful, very forthcoming and very proactive in reviewing all the different coverages and everything else we needed in order to do the very best job for the city. Unfortunately, I do not have an alternative market to offer. Travelers has a deductible structure that is 3 percent on wind and hail, while Employers Mutual has $75,000 per occurrence for all buildings. To give a frame of reference, there’s one building that, under that 3 percent, would ultimately be a $114,000 deductible, so the deductibles alone, from our perspective, put that out of fiscal responsibility, so we wouldn’t recommend that.”

Taylor mentioned some other benefits to remaining with Employer’s Mutual Casualty.

“In addition to that, Employers Mutual is also a mutual company, which means the city participates in their program for safe operating entities and receive a dividend check,” Taylor said. “Dividend checks are not guaranteed, but for the past 20 years, the City of Liberal has received one, the lowest of which has been $77,000 and the highest has been $131,000. Travelers offered $8,500 less in premium, so it doesn’t compute to consider them, but I wanted to have that conversation so everyone would understand the process and the lengths everyone went to in order to arrive at that conclusion.”

Another important aspect Taylor discussed was a change in premium. 

“There are two lines there were increases on, and those are General Liability and Worker’s Compensation. This is not a rate increase in any fashion. The City of Liberal had a $2 million increase in payroll, and Scarlette did a great job going through payroll numbers, which had not yet been updated,” Taylor said. “With the worker’s compensation numbers, the city had been getting significant audits for quite a long time because the numbers that were provided  in the beginning are more of a guess, and then there’s an audit near the end of the term to make sure if anyone guessed incorrectly, or if there’s a refund due,  it’s received.”

Taylor concluded her presentation by praising the work done by the City of Liberal team. 

In other new business, the commission approved authorizing staff at Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport to move forward with security camera installation through INAalert. The initial $30,000 expenditure will be allocated from the airport’s capital equipment budget, while the remaining $16,506.51 will be sourced from currently under-budgeted line items within the existing fiscal year’s allocation. Commissioners also approved a quote from SHI for the ATLAS Server Hardware Project for the IT Department, with funding being split as follows: $50,000 from General Fund Contingency, $50,000 from 1-cent Sales Tax Crime Prevention, $50,000 from Water, and $97,233.18 from the 1-cent sales tax Streets, Drainage & Capital Improvements.