$71,000 dividend check presented to Charles City from EMC Insurance

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Bob Ingram carried a big manilla envelope to the City Council planning session in Charles City Monday night.

Ingram, an insurance agent with Sisson and Associates, asked City Clerk Trudy O’Donnell to do the honors to open and find out what was inside the surprise package.

Once the folder was peeled back, out came a check with plenty of zeroes on it, made out to the city of Charles City from EMC, a nationwide insurer used by many cities across the country.

“This check is something special,” said Ingram. “It shows good practices that the city has done.”

The check was for $71,054.12.

The dividend check is part of the Iowa Municipal Utilities Program, according to Ingram, and is designed specifically for cities that EMC insures. Factors such as the size of the city’s premiums, worker’s compensation, compensation modification and claims history can all dictate how much money is paid back to each of the cities participating in the insurance pool.

City Administrator Steve Diers said the check is an indicator of steps the city has taken in its employee return-to-work policy.

“It depends on the performance of the pool as a whole, plus what they’re doing locally,” he said.

Diers said prior dividend checks have been in the $15,000-$20,000 range in past years. He said last year’s dividend check was around $23,000. There are some years the city has not received a refund.

“This is more than double anything we’ve ever received, so it was really quite shocking,” he said.

Diers said the city has taken a lot of steps to reduce its insurance risk. The return-to-work policy was something the city put in place to help reduce insurance costs and that in turn lowered expenses to EMC.

“As EMC sees other ways for us to get either employees back to work sooner or other ways to limit losses, definitely feel free to bring them in our direction. This is a result of a lot of that,” said council member Michael Hammond Monday night.

Ingram said EMC underwrites insurance policies for almost 500 municipalities in Iowa, all communities of less than 15,000 population.

“Hopefully we’ll all see benefits from this. Obviously we wouldn’t put the program in if we didn’t think it’d be beneficial,” Ingram said.