The City of Stratford is raising the minimum insurance requirement for businesses, though public feedback has influenced how it will change.
At Monday night’s city council meeting, council passed a bylaw to increase the minimum insurance requirement for business licenses from $2 million to $5 million, but only for programs and services which are directly city property or city services-related.
“This is, I think, good news,” Karmen Krueger, director of corporate services at the city, said. “We'll be working to communicate this information with affected businesses and make any required amendments to our bylaws and our policies that have already been adopted, including holding any additional public meetings.”
As discussed in previous meetings, the reason for the increase in the required coverage is to keep up with the industry. At an earlier meeting Krueger said that according to the city’s insurer $5 million is the new $2 million when it comes to insurance policies.
Despite that fact, Krueger said that the insurer conceded in regards to accepting a $2 million policy for 'other businesses'.
The bylaw as passed reads:
“All businesses required to be licensed in accordance with this by-law shall provide and maintain, at their own expenses, liability and property damage insurance in the minimum amount of $5,000,000, or such other amount as determined by the City from time to time, to protect the City as owner of the municipal property against all liability.”
Due to the wording of the bylaw – specifically the line “or such other amount as determined by the City” – the bylaw had sufficient leeway to reflect the update that Krueger provided, though Krueger did note that staff will be rolling out internal communication to make sure that is implemented appropriately.
The motion and subsequent bylaw passed with only two opposed, Coun. Cody Sebben and Coun. Lesley Biehn.
