Town council advised of increased insurance premiums

During the first Town Council meeting of the year, Fred Crosby, the town administrator, reported that the city’s property and car insurance premiums with HUB and underwriter Travelers will increase by 9.5%. He noted that Travelers did not pay enough for the city’s hail damage. 

The city’s coverage will lapse on Thursday, January 9. Crosby asked Gary Bowers, an insurance consultant from HUB, to shop around for other insurance companies, but all carriers declined to give a quote. In 2019 insurance deductibles were $1,000 per city vehicle and now have increased to $2,500. There were 25 vehicles damaged in this summer’s hail storm.  

Crosby said they do not have much of a choice.  Mayor Chimenti asked for a motion to accept the budget increase and for this carrier. Tracy Van Heule, clerk/treasurer also asked for a motion to add appropriate wording for budget adjustments.  

Crosby noted that the city has worked with HUB for 10-15 years and is not opposed to looking elsewhere for coverage. He noted the County has different coverage with WARM, Wyoming Association of Risk Managers, and suggested investigating them. “It would be interesting to find out if they saw some increases too.”   

Mayor Mike Chimenti asked if there was ever a discussion of creating an insurance pool with the county, city and school district. Crosby said no, he doesn’t know how that would work. Chimenti asked if they would bring them all together with the same company would that bring down the insurance premiums.  Crosby said he doesn’t think so because they would be insurance coverage for three different entities, but doesn’t know for sure. Mayor Chimenti said that it is something they can look into.   

Additionally, Police Department, Chief Julie Mathews, said there are two new patrol vehicles currently in the production line. They should be done by the end of next week, which will take two weeks to ship them. Also, the Spillman patch was scheduled for January 8 but due to some computer compatibility issues, they had to postpone and push it back for now. IT is working on the upgrades to get it where they need it to be.  

Regarding Budget Resolution 557, after the hail storm this summer they received insurance proceeds.  That insurance money went to supplement and replace the police department’s Tahoes.  Motion made and seconded.

Town engineer Anthony Barnett reported that all the final closeout paperwork of the Firehall roof repairs is complete. Pay estimate for release and retainage is included in the list of bills and it’s approved. And he requested approval of the pay estimate of the Bore Project which accounts for materials that are in storage. There is no date set yet for when they will be here, waiting for better weather to do the work.