Municipal insurance was the topic of conversation within many Simcoe County councils over the past few weeks as the prospect of creating an insurance pool to counter excessive costs was proposed, and Tiny Township was no exception.
Rising municipal insurance costs had been a concern by many municipalities over the years, who had been subject to limited municipal providers, joint and several liability, and the impact of unrelated natural hazards elsewhere on the continent.
At the recent committee of the whole meeting, CIO and principal broker Ryan Durrell of Axxima Insurance Services pitched the concept of Tiny banding into a joint municipal insurance pool, which had already seen over 50 per cent of 18 municipalities in Simcoe County join in by the time of his presentation.
Durrell provided an easy-to-digest analogy of self-insurance being likened to cooking meals at home as compared and the savings therein, to insurance which would be like dining at restaurants.
Projected county insurance premiums (amounting to $20.6 million for 2025) estimated that while expected losses of 34 per cent went to pay claims, roughly 66 per cent of premiums would go to places other than serving community needs.
For those joining the proposed pool, becoming covered by one large policy instead of multiple individual municipal policies would provide savings of roughly $4.3 (or 19.2 per cent) by comparison.
In the case of Tiny, roughly $585,000 in direct savings over a five-year span was calculated, with a total of nearly $1.3 million when including accumulated equity in a joint municipal insurance pool over that time.
The catch was that any municipalities wanting to join would have to become inaugural members before June 1, or risk missing out and playing catch up to join at a later date if the pool would allow further entry.
The proposed joint pool followed the examples of other pools by Waterloo Region and Durham County, who had also provided similar results when they were established around the turn of the century.
CAO Robert Lamb noted that while the origin of the Simcoe municipalities insurance pool began at the county CAO table, he had experienced the concept due to a professional relation within the Durham pool. “I got a very quick understanding of what they were doing differently than what we are, and was very surprised that we hadn’t looked at starting our own.
“This does make sense when we have a lot of commonality in place, that does provide an ability for us to get more cost certainties, and have it level the playing field for us,” Lamb said.
“It’s not a political thing, it’s not potentially an airport commission or something like that. This is creating an entity that will manage our risks, and our finance people are the ones that are most worried all the time about those cost certainties and our risk management.”
The committee of the whole approved to become a founding subscriber to the pool with Deputy CAO Haley Leblond selected as the township’s board representative, with ratification of the motion anticipated at an upcoming regular meeting of council.
Following the meeting, Deputy Mayor Sean Miskimins told MidlandToday that the risen volatility in insurance premiums was out of the control of municipal hands.
“I think by subscribing to this municipal insurance pool, that helps give us some power and some say over this,” said Miskimins, “in order to reduce our risk and still maintain the same level of coverage – the same level of deductible – but it just smooths it out. Not only for us, but the next councils that come.”
The municipal insurance pool presentation and staff report can be viewed on the agenda page on the Township of Tiny website.
Archives of council meetings are available to view on the Township’s YouTube channel.