Beaver County eyes decreased insurance costs, lower deductibles in new policy

May 25--BEAVER -- The county will be saving money on its general liability insurance premium this year and it will apply that savings to lowering its deductibles for some claims, Beaver County Financial Administrator Ricardo Luckow told commissioners Wednesday during their work session.

"That's awesome," Commissioner Sandie Egley said.

The county purchases insurance from the Pennsylvania Counties Risk Pool, a program of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. Officials had explored other possibilities regarding insurance and inventoried what needed to be covered, which lowered the rate, Luckow said.

The insurance year starts June 1 for coverage and the proposal from the pool was a premium of $302,270, a savings of about $12,000 from the previous year's premium of $314,851.

The county has been a part of the pool since 1993 and has paid premiums as high as $895,905 for 2007-08, Luckow said. He proposed, and received a favorable nod from commissioners, to lower the deductible for property coverage from $25,000 to $10,000 at an increase of $7,239 in premium costs.

Between June 1, 2011, and May 19, 2016, the county had six property losses, all of which were in excess of the deductible, Luckow said.

The lower cost for insurance was attributed in part to eliminating coverage of vehicles from the county fleet that are no longer in operation or in need of coverage, Luckow said.

___

(c)2016 the Beaver County Times (Beaver, Pa.)

Visit the Beaver County Times (Beaver, Pa.) at www.timesonline.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.