Ohio County Commissioner Zach Abraham, left, and Administrator Randy Russell speak about negotiations for health insurance benefits for county employees. (Photo Provided)

WHEELING — Ohio County employees have until June 30 — the end of the current fiscal year — to select a health benefits package for next year, but the package information isn’t yet in their hands.

County commissioners still are vetting the proposals presented by insurance companies, according to Commission President Zach Abraham.

The county is making adjustments for an expected 52% increase in its health insurance costs for next year. This increase equals about a $2.1 million increase to county taxpayers. Commissioners have been looking in past weeks for ways to decrease the overall costs, with employees expected to pay higher premium costs for 2025-26.

“It’s still going to be expensive, but it won’t be as expensive as the 55% increase to premiums,” Abraham said.

He reported the commission has “come down to a couple of different options,” but still is vetting the cost of what is before them.

Employees can expect to see something different, according to Abraham. For example, employee options for health insurance may be reduced from the three they currently have to just one.

“We will try to minimize the total expense,” he said. “As you know, we’ve had a 55% increase.”

Abraham added commissioners think the Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance option for employees may be retained. There could, however, be changes in the plan and perhaps in how it is funded, he explained.

“We may have to change things around and honor the premiums paid by the people who went through the health assessment last year,” he continued.

If the county stays with Blue Cross/Blue Shield, employees won’t have to make any moves unless they are changing their amount of coverage, Abraham said. Or if another carrier is selected, it could be a matter where employees still could just select coverage similar to what they have now.

He doesn’t anticipate any additional health information will need to be collected.

“We’ll try to keep it as easy as possible,” Abraham added.

The amount of insurance claims from Ohio County employees “has not been good” in recent years, he continued.

The last two years Ohio County has had a loss ratio percent of 135% for it for health care benefits for its employees. In the insurance industry, a loss ratio is a percentage that represents the relationship between an insurer’s incurred losses (claims paid and related expenses) and its earned premiums.

“They’ve paid out over $1 million in claims while we’ve paid the premiums, so that is why we’ve had such a big increase,” Abraham explained. “Our claim utilization is big, so if we can get our claims back to normalcy (premiums will decrease.)”