Toccoa Renews Employee Health Insurance

Toccoa city employees will see an increase in the amount they pay for health insurance next year, though the city will still cover the same percentage of premium costs.

On Monday, Toccoa City Commissioners approved the employee health insurance renewal for 2017 based on recommendations from staff.

The city will keep current Blue Cross-Blue Shield coverage with the Georgia Municipal Association and will continue to offer employees a $1500 deductible plan and a $500 deductible plan.

Matt Bidwell with MSI Benefits, the firm that helps the city with its health insurance each year, said that under the proposed renewal, employees on the $1500 deductible plan would pay a little more out of pocket each week because of a rise in premium costs.

According to Bidwell, an employee’s costs for single coverage would go from $10.81 a week to $12.07 a week, with family coverage going from $70.21 a week to $78.34.

Bidwell said the city would still cover nearly 91 percent of the employee’s health insurance premium costs and 65 percent of the dependent’s costs, which are the same percentages as last year.

“We maintain the same percentages and that leaves the city with a net increase of 11.42 percent,” said Bidwell.

As for employees on the $500 deductible plan, Bidwell says their costs would also go up, by about $7 a week for an employee with single coverage and by about $24 a week for an employee with family coverage.

Bidwell said the city’s premiums are up because it had 138 percent in total paid claims last year, meaning that the insurance paid out over $600,000 more in claims than the city paid in premiums.

“You can look at this one of two ways,” said Bidwell. “You can say, ‘Man, we really got our money’s worth from GMA,’ but then GMA’s going to come back and make sure they have equal money coming in.”

He went on to say that the GMA’s method for setting up insurance helped Toccoa this year keep its increase lower than it would have been in the private commercial market.

“We had a number of carriers say we are not going to touch it, ” said Bidwell of putting the city’s insurance in the commercial market.

The next closest bid would have raised the city’s premiums 17 percent.

Elsewhere, there were no premium increases in the city’s dental or basic life coverage that it offers.

Meanwhile, city commissioners also say they are going to look at putting some money aside in a health insurance reserve account.

City Commissioner Jeanette Jamieson made the recommendation, saying that the city needs to think about preparing for continued rising health insurance costs to minimize the impact on employees.