Municipal insurance premiums in Mapleton remain stable, Steve Smith of Frank Cowan Company Ltd., told Mapleton councillors on Oct. 23.
“That’s as a result of your excellent claims history,” said Smith, a record he credited to conscientiousness of municipal staff and council.
Smith noted municipalities “remain something of a target,” resulting in high liability coverage rates.
“Nobody’s responsible for their accidents anymore. They all have to bring everything back to the municipality,” he commented.
The township will pay an annual premium of $170,989 for all forms of coverage in the 2012-13 term. That’s up about 2.5 per cent from the $166,265 the municipality paid in premium for the 2011-12 term.
The policy provides the municipality with municipal liability coverage up to $25 million per occurrence.
A report on current market conditions provided by the Frank Cowan Company, which specializes in insuring public entities such as municipalities, notes the sector continues to experience “significant” losses.
“Some of these have been driven by landmark cases, but overall, frequency and severity of claims has increased dramatically.
“As well the overall cost of claims, which takes into account escalating court awards, claims administration expense and the ever-increasing replacement cost of assets, has continued to rise. Insurers and reinsurers are extremely cautious about public entity liability exposures due in part of the complexity of services provided by public sector organizations,” the report states.
