McHenry County officials heard on Sept. 3 from a representative of IPBC, the county's municipal insurance cooperative, about health‑benefit pooling, recent claim trends and how pooling has affected the county's renewal calculations.

IPBC overview and pool mechanics
Dife, representing IPBC, described the pool as a multi‑member Illinois municipal cooperative (formed in 1979, according to the presenter) that spreads claims risk across participants. She told the committee IPBC has more than 170 municipal members and covers more than 20,000 lives. "Claims under $50,000 are McHenry County's responsibility. Anything over $50,000 for an individual is shared across all of the IPBC members," Dife said.

Financial snapshot and trends
Dife told the committee the county's five‑year averages for the PPO plan sit below the IPBC book average and national market averages, a result she attributed to pooling and McHenry County's historical loss ratios. She said the pool saw an unexpected increase this year driven by high‑cost claimants, chronic disease trends and increased use of GLP‑1 medicines. The presenter said that for the county the PPO plan remains below the pool average, while the county's HMO plan has had higher claims activity and is running above a 100% loss ratio; Dife said the HMO's higher cost is driven largely by hospital and facility claims.

Why it matters: pool benefits and variability
Dife said pooling provides purchasing power and more predictable renewals for members, and she noted the pool was returning interest to members from reserves. She also said the pool shares surplus and deficit outcomes among members and cautioned that HMO costs are not shared in the same way as pooled PPO claims.

Committee follow-up: Dife and county staff answered members' questions about the HMO trends, the pool's surplus/deficit allocation and whether lower loss ratios could reduce county premiums in future renewals. Dife said the pool is returning interest on reserves and that surplus/deficit distributions can reduce future premium equivalents.

Ending: The IPBC presentation was informational; no board action was taken at the Sept. 3 meeting.