DAVE MOSIER\/<\/b>independent editor<\/i><\/p>\n
The Van Wert County Board of Commissioners got a boost to its financial bottom line with the approval of a new third-party health insurance administrator contract with Gallagher Benefit Services.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Thad Lichtensteiger said the county has been looking to move from a five-county consortium that also includes Auglaize, Mercer, Shelby and Hancock counties for at least a couple of years because of the high health care premiums the county has been paying.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really just think we\u2019ve been getting a spanking on health insurance the last few years,\u201d Lichtensteiger said, adding that the county had given its one-year notice that it planned to leave the consortium a couple of years ago so it could explore its options on the open market.<\/p>\n
However, until this year, Lichtensteiger added, the county, in part due to its aging employee base (only one county employee is under age 40), has not been able to find a better deal than it was getting through the consortium.<\/p>\n
That changed, though, with a third-party quote received from Gallagher Benefit Services. Lichtensteiger noted that, under the new plan, which takes effect January 1, 2014, county employees\u2019 deductible would increase $1,500, from $1,000 to $2,500, although the commissioner added that the county would be funding $1,200 of that difference.<\/p>\n
In addition to health insurance savings, the county also saved money on the life insurance and dental insurance components of the new benefits package, Lichtensteiger said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the cost savings are much needed, since the county is currently showing a $180,000 budget deficit, thanks to a reimbursement of $365,000 still owing to the federal government in connection with sewer projects on U.S. 127 and Ohio 118 south of Van Wert.<\/p>\n
Because some paperwork deadlines were not met on those projects several years ago, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has sought repayment of the $365,000 provided by that agency for the sewer projects.<\/p>\n
Still pending, though, is the possibility that the county\u2019s risk-management insurer will cover the $365,000 through the county\u2019s errors and omissions insurance.<\/p>\n
Documents have been sent to the company detailing the incident, and Lichtensteiger said the county is currently waiting to hear whether the company would cover the loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor The Van Wert County Board of Commissioners got a boost to its financial bottom line with the approval of a new third-party health insurance administrator contract with Gallagher Benefit Services. Commissioner Thad Lichtensteiger said the county has been looking to move from a five-county consortium that also includes Auglaize, Mercer, Shelby and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 02:43:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}