Rutledge, McMinnville Honored For Efforts To Minimize Insurance Claims

McMinnville’s Human Resources Director recognized for her work in Risk Management, something Libby Rutledge calls a surprise.

Rutledge said she’s been in HR for 25 plus years in the private world, but had really not dealt much much with risk management. Then, she came to work for the city and had to learn that part of the job.

Public Entity Partners handles the city’s insurance liability and workers compensation. The company honored Rutledge.

“We have a building maintenance program, and annually they will come on site and do a survey and based on their guidelines of how their customers maintain their buildings, and based on the claims, we had had a loss ratio of less than 15 percent maintaining,” Rutledge said. “We have, like, 120 properties and had no claims for the past two years. So that, I think, helped us at least stand out among the nominees for the award.”

Rutledge said the loss ratio drives your premiums. She said city officials work together to try to take care of the community’s properties and keep them maintained.

“Having no claim obviously is phenomenal,” Rutledge said. “That’s pretty good. As far as showing that we do proactively try to take care of our properties and keep them maintained.”

Rutledge said the honor really speaks to the work of the city in doing the right things with maintenance, safety programs and the audits of facilities. Those are conducted by city inspectors and the Community Development Director.

“I think winning an award for what we were doing, obviously we didn’t set out to try to win an award, and I never, ever thought that we would get an award for this,” Rutledge said. “So being recognized by our partner and the people that we pay to insure us and them coming in saying, ‘hey, you’re doing a great job,’ is huge for obviously the employees and the city.”

The honor should also help employees understand the importance of the rules and procedures in place, Rutledge said. Those are designed to minimize risk for the city and its team members.

“Sometimes it doesn’t really hit home on what do we get for doing this,” Rutledge said. “So when you get recognized by that, I think it’s phenomenal because the employees hear us preaching, this is what you need to do. And they work really hard and make sure everything is maintained really good all year round. They know that someone comes on site and they do an inspection, but they never hear back, ‘hey, you’re doing a great job’. So being able to stand in front of them and say, ‘hey, we’ve gotten an award, we have been recognized for all of this.’ Hard work is going to reinforce and I think ignite some more passion around. Okay. This side job we have over here, maintaining buildings and making sure we have safe environments is really paying off for us.”

Public Entity Partners annually honors individuals, departments, cities, and towns for their work in the risk management field.