4.12. SR 11-18-2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City of Elk Request for Action River To Item Number Mayor and City Council 4.12 Agenda Section Meeting Date Prepared by Consent November 18, 2013 Lauren Wipper, Human Resource Representative Item Description Reviewed by 2014 Flexible Benefit Design Cal Portner, City Administrator Reviewed by Action Requested Approve by motion the 2014 Flexible Benefit Design. Background/Discussion Renewal/Premium Rates Our renewal with Medica called for a 42%premium rate increase for 2014. Medica offered us 35%. Our brokers,Financial Concepts Inc. (FCI),recommended we go out for bid to see how we would do in the market. We received bids from three companies,B1ueCross/B1ueShield, Public Employees Insurance Program (PEIP),and LOGIS. Armed with these bids, FCI went back to Medica and negotiated our increase down to an average of 22.9%. This bid provided different percentage increases to each of our three plans and when we requested for those to be evened out,they brought them all to 20%. Medica also added a network option for our High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP). Employees may stay with the open access network that we have been using or they may choose to participate in either the Elect or Essential network. The network option provides an 8.4% savings in monthly premium. This can only be added to one of our plans and, since our HDHP has the highest enrollment,we felt that was the best option. Our dental plan received a 4.8%premium increase making single dental coverage $37.31 per month and family$98.75. The rest of the insurance coverage we offer in the flexible benefits plan, short-term disability,long-term disability, term life insurance, and additional life insurance, have no change in premiums. We are again offering the option for employees to opt out of medical insurance coverage with the city if they certify that they have coverage elsewhere. City Contribution The preliminary budget includes a 5%increase in the city's contribution to employee's flexible benefits plans. As well,we have funds available from the Early Retiree Reinvestment Program grant we received in 2011. These grant funds are required to be used to offset the cost of insurance to employees and we will be using them to do just that in 2014. Since 2010,we have used a portion of the city's contribution to help fund the Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) of employees electing the HDHP. Because of the high increase in premiums for 2014,we have decided to provide all of the available funds to the monthly cost of premiums rather than fund HSAs. As a result, even with the high increase in premium,the impact to employees ranges from -$2 to $30 for P a w E R E U 6 Y NaA f RE]