When a rep from BHS Insurance Agency earlier this month at the — took the floor, the room’s attention sharpened.
Health insurance always does that as a complicated gaze went over the commissioners for the upcoming 45-minute talk with insurance representative Lew Wolters.
Wolters, a health/employee benefits agent with BHS Insurance, appeared before the county board in January and approved health insurance for employees for 2026.
Here’s the good news and the bad news: the insurance budget has to go up, nearly by a quarter of a million dollars from roughly $2.75 million to $3 million.
The good news is, a new piece of AI-driven software on the market could save the county over $76,000, he said.
Now how the AI tracks and monitors you is a different story.
He waved it off almost as an aside — “easy softball,” he called it, the kind of savings that’s just sitting there waiting for someone to reach out and grab it, if the county gets access to the right data.
How that connects to savings is unclear.
Claims costs were running significantly higher than expected at the county level, enough that the agency was proposing an increase to cover it.
The one bright spot: even with costs elevated, the trend line was bending the right direction. Not solved, but not spiraling either.
The most concrete idea on the table was Table Health — a direct primary care option with two locations in Traverse City, floated as a potential countylevel partnership.
The broker didn’t undersell it: he called it “the Cadillac of health plans,” the kind of benefit that gives employees a level of access most county packages can’t match.
Board members who have been working on the proposed budget for several months had previously identified $2.6 million in premiums.
Not unlike a car insurance policy where they pay a fixed monthly premium, and the insurance company handles the entire cost if you get into an accident. With a self-insured plan, the employer essentially acts as its own insurance company. The county has stop-loss insurance for managing the risk associated with self-insurance. The current stop-loss figure is $20,000, but this will be increased to $50,000.
The county’s stop-loss cost was $1,434,720 in 2025.
The largest claim payments for 2024 and this year, were from prescription costs, which have seen a steady increase in prescription cost coverage going back to 2018.
That year, prescription coverage was $353,785. The total jumped two years later to $400,992 and $455,537 in 2021.
The following year, a 25% increase in costs were recorded with prescriptions topping the $600,000-mark for the first time.
The largest one-year jump in prescription costs was 2023 to 2024, when it jumped from $668,790 to $970,374. And the total increased to $1.06 million last year.
The results of an employee survey recently conducted by the human resources director reflect overwhelming support for continuance of coverage as is.
“If the county makes any changes to the health insurance plan, that increases employees expenses/contributions, I will have to resign,” one staff member commented.
Another person replied, “The current benefit package is the reason I am still here when I commute an hour one way.”
