Like many municipalities in Ontario, Chatham-Kent is experiencing significant increases in the cost for insurance coverage.
At tonight’s council meeting, council will consider a bid for 2022 insurance coverage that will cost 40 percent more in premiums than last year. Only one municipal insurance provider put in a bid for Chatham-Kent’s insurance.
The bid for 2022 insurance premiums is just shy of $2 million. By comparison, Chatham-Kent paid just over $1 million for insurance premiums as recently as 2018.
Chatham-Kent plans to call on the province to undertake a comprehensive review of unsustainable insurance premium increases, in an effort to reduce the pressures on municipalities.
Among the other issues on council’s agenda tonight: an update on Chatham-Kent’s growth strategy with preliminary growth forecasts, an update on physician recruitment efforts locally, a report on a potential bike share program, and an application for a site plan control for a warehouse to be build on the former Navistar property in Chatham.