Crawley Borough Council has become a founding member of the local government insurance mutual, which it argues will help reduce the authority’s ‘forecasted budget gap’.
The Local Government Mutual offers councils a cost-effective alternative to the conventional insurance market products and services available to local government.
Owned and controlled by its members, and supported by the Local Government Association, the mutual reduces the typical members’ risk exposure without increasing their costs.
The structure of the mutual means member councils will not pay insurance premium tax, currently set at 12%, on the vast majority of insurance products.
It guarantees caps on losses each year and eliminates uncertainty over losses in future years, as well as building up a surplus that may be used to reduce the cost of protection or improve members’ claim experience.
Crawley council’s decision to become a founding member will mean it can provide a senior elected member to join the mutual’s board. It will also be involved in the establishment of the governance and management arrangements.
Leader of the council, Peter Lamb, said: ‘It’s great to see Crawley Borough Council become a founding member of this initiative. The mutual is another way the council is saving money to put back into services and to reduce the forecasted budget gap.’
