San Juan County selects New Mexico Mutual for workers’ compensation insurance with $10,000 deductible

San Juan County commissioners voted to select New Mexico Mutual as the county’s workers’ compensation carrier for fiscal year 2026, choosing a plan with a $10,000 deductible and a staff-cited premium figure in the $600,000 range.

County claims manager Cynthia Singleton and broker Nate Duckett of Kaiser Millennium presented the underwriting options and recommended New Mexico Mutual. Duckett said the carrier offered resources he characterized as beneficial for municipal operations, including on-site consulting, safety training, online modules and driver‑monitoring services. Duckett told the commission that New Mexico Mutual and its team “do have the resources, the personnel, the know how to ensure that we do not miss a step.”

Why it matters: staff and the broker said the selection is intended to give the county more direct control over long‑term workers’ compensation costs by using the carrier’s loss‑control services and by making the county eligible for experience‑modification (eMod) adjustments based on future claims performance.

Premiums and deductible options presented: staff summarized competing offers from New Mexico Counties Insurance Authority and New Mexico Mutual. The packet presented to commissioners showed New Mexico Counties offering several deductible options (including a quoted 0‑deductible option described in the staff presentation as approximately $945,000 and other deductible levels with lower premiums). New Mexico Mutual’s quoted options in the staff presentation included a $10,000 deductible at $600,858 total premium and a $25,000 deductible at $425,318 total premium. Staff said an outstanding assessment associated with the counties pool was being paid over multiple years and that a $100,000 installment remains due this year regardless of the carrier chosen.

Staff recommendation and rationale: Duckett and Singleton emphasized New Mexico Mutual’s on‑site auditing, dedicated safety consultants, training (including OSHA‑10 and defensive driving), and driver monitoring (Samba Safety) that they said could reduce future losses and thereby improve premiums under an experience‑rating system. Duckett said, “it puts it really in our hands to control more what we're doing here as opposed to just accepting year after year what we've seen.”

Commission decision: A commissioner moved to accept staff’s recommendation to contract with New Mexico Mutual at the staff‑presented $10,000 deductible option (staff used a $600,858 figure in the presentation; the motion as recorded in the transcript used a slightly different numeric formatting: $600,008.58). The motion was seconded and passed; the chair announced the motion carried. The commission did not provide a roll‑call breakdown in the transcript.

Next steps: Staff said they would initiate a transition call with New Mexico Mutual and begin onboarding activities to implement the new program. The county will monitor claims and consider eMod results and premium changes in future policy years.