County insurance agent provides good news

Henry County's insurance agent had a surprise to report during the Wednesday meeting of the Henry County Commissioners.

"I'm going to throw you guys a total curve ball today and come with only good news," said Josh Estelle of the McGowan Insurance Group.

In terms of county medical insurance, Estelle told the commissioners he secured a $90,000 specific deductible per person that also includes a "No New Laser" agreement; under a "No New Laser" contract, the carrier agrees not to impose any further exclusions (or "lasers") to the policy until renewal time. The county's medical insurance carrier is UGS.

"So we talked about this last week just because it was time sensitive," Estelle said. "I went ahead and locked it in on a our stop loss renewal for the medical plan, which is June 1. As you recall, those are sensitive because they give us windows where the claim data is fresh and not stale and then as soon as we get through that window where additional claims are available for the next month, it starts to flock over...I was able to lock it in, pending approval here today."

Estelle said that, "knock on wood," no one yet this year has hit the $90,000 deductible.

"We got very aggressive pricing from the market and stop loss, and we had the incumbent carrier willing to basically come down and match what we had from the market," he told the commissioners. "And because we are in a pretty healthy pattern right now, we were able to get the incumbent carrier to also include a no new laser agreement, which means they can't in future years raise on specific individuals from that $90,000. That's generally worthless unless you can also get them to put a rate cap on it."

Estelle said he was also able to get a 45 percent rate cap with excellent terms.

"At renewal, the carrier evaluates the health going on in the group and can add a laser (higher deductible for a specific person) and/or add significant premium for specific costs," explained Henry County Commissioner Bobbi Plummer. "The no new laser locks in our $90,000 per person for everyone, but also caps what the carrier can charge on premium at 45 percent increase regardless of expected costs. The discussion of the 1.6 percent is the increase in premium that we will have at renewal in June."

Plummer said Estelle also spoke about the Travelers Property and InLand Marine Coverage.

"We chose to stay with Travelers for this coverage as our deductible is currently $5,000 and the other carriers were quoting $100,000 deductibles for these items," Plummer said. "Travelers contacted Josh Estelle last Thursday to inform him that they will be re-quoting renewal on these products and the deductible, while increasing, will only increase to $10,000. Good news!"

The commissioners did not make any decisions Wednesday regarding upcoming insurance renewals, as they do not have all of the information.

"He [Josh] was happy to be able to bring us some good news regarding insurance," Plummer said.