New London renews insurance after search for new carrier

Day, The (New London, CT)

June 30--NEW LONDON -- After a search for a different carrier, the City Council on Monday night unanimously authorized the renewal of the city's insurance policies with the Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency.

The city's worker's compensation policy will be renewed with a $565,000 premium, and its liability, auto and property policy will be renewed with a premium of about $1.2 million and a deductible of $500,000.

Risk Manager Paul Gills had been shopping around for a different insurance provider and said Monday that he received quotes from 11 different carriers.

None of the quotes was substantially better for the city, he said, and the administrative costs of switching carriers would have negated the possible savings.

"The response from virtually all the markets was to increase our deductible," Gills said. "There were some options with lower deductibles but with significantly higher premiums that were not a cost saving to the city."

Fred Tanguay, the city's insurance broker from People's United Bank, told the council Monday that CIRMA is raising its deductibles for most of the municipalities it represents, though Gills said others are not seeing increases that are "quite as dramatic."

"We are probably leading the pack in terms of premium and deductible increases with CIRMA," he said.

Facing skyrocketing insurance costs last year, the city hired Gills, who began a top-to-bottom overhaul of the city's safety policies with the expectation that the city's insurance carrier would keep its rates from becoming exorbitant.

But in late March, CIRMA presented the city with two options for its liability, auto and property insurance policy: accept either a 22 percent increase -- from roughly $1.1 million to $1.34 million -- in the policy's premium and a 100 percent increase -- from $250,000 to $500,000 -- in its per-claim deductible, or a $1 million premium and a $1 million deductible.

Gills called CIRMA's offers "unacceptable" and said the city had followed through on a list CIRMA provided of "some very specific actions" to reduce its losses with the understanding that the work would be reflected in its insurance rates.

Last year, the premium for the city's liability and auto insurance policy, which is provided by CIRMA, increased by about 10 percent, and the city's deductible for that policy jumped from $0 or $50,000 -- depending on the line of insurance -- to half a million dollars.

The rate hike was likely spurred by a high number of claims with potential losses over the last three years, including the August 2011 police-involved shooting that left the driver of a stolen ice truck paralyzed, the July 2013 drowning of a 6-year-old boy at a municipal beach on Pequot Avenue and the January 2014 death of a man who fell into the trash compactor at the city's transfer station.

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung

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