Council Rock committee reviews insurance renewal after carriers flag flood risk at five schools

The Council Rock School District Finance Committee reviewed proposed property insurance renewals June 9 after an insurer used new flood‑modeling to identify five schools as having elevated flood risk.

The district’s insurance broker, Rich Dyer of the Seltzer Company, told the committee the carrier’s vendor used a new modeling tool and “of all your schools, 5, they no longer want to write 1 insurance.” Dyer listed Newtown Middle, Welch Elementary, Newtown Elementary, Richboro (Richborough) Elementary and Rolling Hills Elementary as the properties affected.

The change means the district’s current carrier would not provide the district’s typical $3 million flood limit for those buildings. Dyer said the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) offers a base of $500,000 for building and $500,000 for contents per school (a $1 million total). To restore the district’s prior $3 million per‑school limit, staff quoted buying an additional $2 million excess policy. Dyer gave an annual premium estimate for that excess of about $35,900 per school and a combined total of $46,444 per year for all five schools under the proposed structure.

Board members asked how the insurer defines the term the broker described as “catastrophic rainfall.” Board member Michael Roosevelt pressed whether the exposure reflected river or surface‑runoff risks; Dyer said the model considers topography and storm tracks and cited examples where insurers paid large claims after intense, concentrated rainfall events. Roosevelt asked for a quantifiable definition; Dyer acknowledged the carrier’s analysis was based on modeled rainfall patterns rather than a single numeric threshold and said the vendor viewed the five properties as vulnerable to concentrated, catastrophic rainfall events.

Committee members also discussed whether the excess flood limits quoted would be an aggregate policy across the five schools or paid per school. Dyer said the additional $2 million excess sits “in aggregate sitting over the school, so it would be shared by all of the schools,” and confirmed that payment would be per event (if the same storm damaged multiple schools it could exhaust the aggregate limit for that event). The committee asked staff to model alternatives, including per‑school excess coverage and the cost difference.

Dyer and staff said the district pushed back with the carrier and supplied photographs and local elevation evidence, but that the carrier held its position based on the vendor’s modeled exposure. Dyer told the committee that the flagged schools did not have basements that would make flood payouts more likely and that the district had minimal claims historically, which had kept rates low.

No formal vote was recorded at the meeting. Staff recommended the committee consider purchasing the NFIP base coverage for the affected schools and procuring excess flood capacity to reach prior $3 million limits; board members requested follow‑up cost comparisons for per‑school versus aggregate excess limits and clearer carrier definitions of “catastrophic rainfall.”

Ending: The committee did not finalize a purchase decision June 9; staff will return with additional quotes and clarifications about per‑school versus aggregate excess options and any impact on the overall insurance renewal package.