02/16/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting 2-16-04 Page 10 Dr. Parker said he said for the renewals, that is where it really comes into play. That's where it seems they have the ability to negotiate. I don't know where other people are on it. Mrs. Mills said we will not be placed on a Consortium. What we're going to do, we're going to buy our insurance on our own level-we're not combining with any other communities. This is what they asked him about-the Consortium-and the response was if you had 1,000 members, there is a good say 20 groups-if the rates increase-do the health conditions? A healthy group would leave the Consortium which is natural and then the unhealthy groups are paying a lot and are unhappy. Dr. Parker said I guess what I meant was if that they have the ability to see what a lot of different communities are receiving from these different companies. As a result, if you know that someone is paying less for an automobile than you are, you are going to be able to negotiate with the automobile salesman, but if you don't have that knowledge base, if you aren't representing other communities, how are you going to know or have the information for that so I just looked at that and I said these guys are representing so many difFerent communities and the experience and background-it is just my impression from reading it, now if people feel differently, that is fine.. . Mr. Marquardt said I agree vvith Dr. Parker; I think we are rushing into this. This meeting occurred Friday and this is the first we have seen of these minutes. I think if you look at everything else that we are doing, we are looking at trying to get larger groups involved or getting people more knowledge or a broader scope of negotiation across communities and this is ' moving in the opposite direction. I think we would be better served by considering somebody who has a broader base of negotiating activity. It just doesn't track with everything else that we are doing as far as trying to get the costs down. I think we'll have more leverage with somebody that represents a broader range of communities. Mr. Saponaro said I would agree with Mr. Marquardt and Dr. Parker. When the agents came before us and we asked Mr. Barrett specifically what communities he represents and he said he does not [represent any.] I was impressed with Mr. Kravec and all the experience that he has with the municipalities. In my understanding with what is going on, it appears that they will be able to better meet the needs of the municipality because of the experience that they have. Mrs. Cinco said my understanding when we go out to bids for our renewal, we were given a ballpark of 12.5 by Mr. Hopkins, we have to remember that we are constrained by our contracts. No matter which agent takes our Anthem renewal out, there is not going to be much difference because of our use. We are in our own group. I don't know what one is going to do over another as far as getting us a lower rate based on what we have out there. The reason we went as a committee to the employees is because they are the people that deal with the agents on a day to day basis and how their complaints are handled on a personal level-a lot of them did come to the initial meeting that you received minutes on. This was more their concern-was service- and Donna can attest to that. They've had some experiences in the past 3 years with CPI and they weren't altogether happy. They've had 14 years with Larry; they felt comfortable, he serviced them personally and that's what we explained to them. We said we can't do anything with the contract until we get an agent and we have to do this by the end of March-we have to do it with