The municipality will be paying less for insurance in 2018.
On Tuesday night council approved a motion appointing BFL Canada Risk and Insurance Services Inc. as the County’s 2018 municipal insurance provider at the quoted price of $421,033 plus applicable taxes. The municipality has the option of renewing the relationship annually based on performance and service.
The quoted price represents a significant savings, coming in $139,763 less than the County’s 2017 premiums.
BFL has served as the municipality’s insurance broker for the last four years. The large Canadian-based firm has a dedicated municipal service department with 90 municipal clients in the province. The company also offered the lowest price during a request for proposal (RFP) process initiated by the municipality in October.
The municipality received four proposals. The second-ranked proposal came in $145,228 higher than BFL’s quoted price. The priciest option came in about $239,000 higher.
County chief administrative officer James Hepburn said the contracts have traditionally been awarded on an annual basis. A report presented to council says additional coverages for cyber and volunteer insurance will be considered prior to Jan. 1 when the policy comes into effect. Hepburn says he believes both will ultimately be included.
“Our intent is to take a closer look at the cyber insurance quotation, we’ve been also working with the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus EOWC for cyber insurance just to make sure this is as comprehensive as it possibly can be,” he said. “I’m assuming we’ll go forward with that, we have to determine the level of coverage.”
In terms of the volunteer accident insurance, he said there’s enough left in the budget to include the coverage, so the municipality will likely move forward with that as well.
The municipality brought aboard Robert Harder Consulting Inc. to assist in the RFP process. The consultant’s report lists several cyber coverage options that were quoted by BFL. They range in cost from $12,423 to $27,435, while the volunteer accident insurance was anticipated to add about $3,750 to the premium.
—Staff