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Benton County approves ISAC health plan renewal, keeps employee share unchanged
Summary
The board accepted an ISAC benefits renewal package that reflects a 3% base rate decrease, kept employee contributions unchanged and approved a modest dental plan upgrade; supervisors voted to apply the county's selected funding option for FY26.
Benton County supervisors voted Jan. 7 to accept the Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC) group benefits renewal and adopt related plan choices for the county—9s FY26 budget, keeping employee premiums at current levels while reducing county costs under ISAC's negotiated change.
County benefits consultant Ryan Bevins, representing Assured Partners and the ISAC pool, told the Board that ISAC's overall pool performance produced a base-rate decrease of 3 percent for participating counties. Bevins said ISAC will return $1 million to counties as part of that improvement and recommended options for how Benton County could apply the reduction to reserves or to reduce employer contributions.
The board approved three separate decisions on the benefit package: keeping vision coverage unchanged; moving the county dental plan from ISAC Plan 3 to Plan 4 (an upgrade that adds roughly $500 more annual dental benefit per enrollee for roughly $2 more per employee per month); and selecting a funding option for the medical plan that applies ISAC's base 3% decrease to the county reserve strategy (the board approved “option 3,” the more conservative reserve-reduction scenario that still preserves a significant county reserve for partial self-fund claims).
Bevins outlined the health plan design and the county's partial self-fund structure, which uses a $5,000 deductible with the county budgeting to buy down most of that employee exposure (an HRA-style employer contribution). He said Benton County's group produced a favorable three-year experience and that the ISAC pool's fiscal performance allowed a negative renewal in a sector that typically sees increases of 8–12 percent.
Supervisors discussed the options' budget implications and whether to pass savings to employees or retain them for county reserves. The board voted to keep employee premiums unchanged so the county captures most of the negotiated savings in FY26 while maintaining the county share of premiums at the new, lower level.
Votes at the meeting recorded the motions passing unanimously: vision unchanged (aye), dental plan upgrade to Plan 4 (aye), and adoption of the ISAC medical renewal funding option 3 with employee contributions unchanged (aye).
County staff will incorporate the approved plan and funding choices into department budgets for FY26 and return any additional plan design follow-ups to the board for final budget adoption.
Ending: The approved changes take effect with the ISAC plan year beginning July 1 for premium and plan design items; some administrative timing (enrollment and reserve accounting) will be handled by the auditor—9s and human-resources offices in advance of that date.
