County-Related News

Health Pool Hands out $9 Million in Renewal Credits

County officials on the board of the TAC Health and Employee Benefits Pool (TAC HEBP) agreed for the third year in a row to issue credits to renewing members.

The Pool usually returns renewal credits to members when losses are lower than projected. While the gain on operations was not at the level desired this year, the board supported issuing the $9 million in renewal credits due to the economy and its impact on members.

“The Pool experienced a net gain on underwriting this year. But, like many of us have experienced with our personal accounts, the value of the reserves we are holding has gone down due to the turmoil in the markets,” said Jennifer Hall, the Pool’s deputy director of program administration. “The Pool holds most of the assets to maturity, so we don’t expect to realize these losses. Recognizing the difficulty many members face with their budgets this year, the Board agreed to return the gain on underwriting to the members.”

In 2007, the TAC HEBP Board agreed to issue credits totaling $6 million to counties that renewed their medical coverage. In June 2008, the board increased the credits to $9 million. This year, the board agreed to keep the renewal credits at $9 million, bringing the total renewal credits for the past three years to $24 million.

In addition, the board bucked the national trend in health insurance costs by establishing rates that are up only 6.1 percent on average, significantly lower than the 9 percent average the rest of the state and country are seeing.

The amount of the credit for each group depends on how long it has carried health coverage with TAC HEBP and how much it has contributed to the surplus. Each group’s rates are different, based on the type of plan it offers, the demographics of the group and the group’s size.

The board opted to issue monthly credits rather than reduce overall rates because of the need for rates to reflect anticipated claims for the year.

“We would love to give no increase at all. However, the rates need to at least keep up with medical inflation, or we would be setting the members up for a huge rate increase down the road,” said T AC HEBP Program Manager Bill N orwood. “We try to keep the rates as steady as possible, without wide fluctuations that make it difficult to budget.”

The credits will be issued on each monthly invoice beginning with the group’s anniversary date. Groups must have been a member.