The Public Employees Benefit Board will stick with the Standard Insurance Company for its life insurance needs for now, but will aim to play the field next year, with hopes for a joint request for proposal with the Oregon Educators Benefit Board.
The Standard has provided life insurance to public employees since at least the 1980s, and provided quality service, according to PEBB director Kathy Loretz. But, as with anything, it may be prudent to test the market and look for a better deal, and leverage the combined bargaining power of 300,000 people when joined with the teachers’ health plan.
“We are very happy with the rates we get from [the Standard], they’ve been very stable over the years,” Loretz said at the monthly August board meeting on Tuesday. Still, “I think it would be wise to partner with OEBB. … I think we’d see better rates.”
The idea of cracking open the life insurance contract was first breached this spring by PEBB’s actuarial consultants at Mercer. PEBB considered going it alone, but on second-thought, decided that working with OEBB may be a better path.
Now that OEBB finally has a new administrator, James Raussen, it will be working to examine more cost-effective, coordinated care proposals from insurers in the fall and early 2017. Their staff would have more time evaluating new life insurance contracts later in 2017.
But with a tight state budget and growing healthcare costs, PEBB board member Bill Barr behooved Loretz to look for potential life insurance savings in time for 2018, meaning the work should take place in the latter half of next year.
