After bids were sent to 19 different life insurance companies this fall, Cook County received only one bid for employee life insurance.
MN Life offered insurance for the same rate the county has been paying its current company, USAble Life, which did not submit a bid, and it offered a two-year price guarantee. Rates for voluntary extra insurance for employees or their families will be lower than with the current company.
Personnel Director Janet Simonen said it’s a good, competitive bid. The county will pay $13,092 per year for employee life insurance, a savings of $5,499.60 per year.
The county received bids for its long-term disability insurance from only two companies. The lowest bid was from Prudential, which offered a rate of $10,768.36 per year, well below a bid from the county’s current provider, Assurant, in the amount of $21,222.32 per year. Simonen believes the low bid was a result of Prudential’s attempt to break into the market for smaller employee pools.
Both the Prudential bid and the Assurant bid outlined above were submitted through Ochs, an insurance broker that deals with a lot of public agencies. Ochs reserves the right to be the agent of record for whatever successful bids it procures for the county.
Local insurance agent John McClure also submitted a bid from Assurant for long term disability at a rate 5% cheaper than the Assurant bid through Ochs. That bid was still significantly higher than the Prudential bid.
At its Tuesday, October 13, 2009 meeting, the county board voted to go with MN Life for life insurance and Prudential for long-term disability insurance.
By law, the county must send out requests for proposals every five years in order to find the best deals on insurance.
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