T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Iowa Municipalities Workers’ Compensation Association Safety and Risk Improvement Manager Dean Schade, left, and Shomo-Madsen Insurance President Bobby Shomo, right, address the Marshall County Board of Supervisors about an uptick in workers’ compensation claims during Wednesday morning’s regular meeting.

The final Marshall County Board of Supervisors meeting of 2025 held on Wednesday morning came with a bit of tough love from Iowa Municipalities Workers’ Compensation Association Safety and Risk Improvement Manager Dean Schade, who urged the board to do more to reduce workers’ compensation claims and warned of a potential $50,000 insurance premium increase due to an uptick in claims in 2025.

The IMWCA has provided workers’ comp coverage for the county for the last several years, and he presented to the board around the same time last year about taking current safety programs “to the next level.” According to Schade, there have been positive developments during his time working with the county’s safety committee, but he felt that it’s not quite progressing the way it needs to in order to “get where you want to be.”

From there, he noted that there was a “significant” filed within the last few months that put the county’s loss ratio well over 100 percent, which means that for every dollar the county pays in premiums, the insurer is paying $1.87 for a 187 percent rate.

“What it means for you guys as a county is that your premium is looking to go up again. We were here last time. We had talked about, you know, the county’s losses had started to go in the right direction, and as a result, your premiums were starting to go in the right direction to a 0.92 (Experience Modification Factor) MOD, which is good,” he said. “Not great, but it is good compared to where you had been a couple of years ago at a 1.05, which means you were paying a surcharge of five percent, you weren’t getting a lot of discounts, and at that point, your premium was $221,000.”

The premium subsequently dropped from $221,000 to $140,000 after improvements were made, freeing up money to be spent in other places. Claims are now picking up again, and the MOD rate is going to go up to a 0.99 — when coupled with the large recent claim, it will push the county out of qualification for the good experience bonus.

Other factors leading to further loss of discounts pertaining to the specific incident include the fact that a seatbelt was not being worn. As a result, the county is facing a potential $50,000 increase in premium for the upcoming year. There are still some discounts that can be “clawed back,” Schade said, but he stressed that the safety committee would need to make a “dramatic jump” in their efforts.

“We’re gonna need to turbocharge it, and I’m gonna be here to help do it,” he said.

In order to achieve it, he urged the supervisors to use a Cause of Risk Allocation so the departments that cause the losses will be required to pay for them and “turbocharge” the incident review process through a deep dive analysis of incidents.

With that said, he acknowledged that some incidents simply can’t be controlled, but if they are found to be preventable, the responsible department will have to own it. Schade also plans to improve the online training programs and ensure that all departments buy in and use them.

Another challenge, he said, is that the county has a history of claimants with multiple injuries. The average American adult has one workers’ comp claim in their entire career, but Schade said there are Marshall County employees with multiple claims — including one with three over $20,000 apiece.

“We’re not saying that person’s a bad employee, but what we have to do is develop a personal safety action plan where anytime we have an employee that has multiple claims, we’re sitting down with them and trying to figure out why is it happening to that individual? It might be on their end. It might be on management’s end. It might be a combination, but we’ve got to figure it out. And then once we know that, then we know what we need to fix,” Schade said. “I want to work with the county. There’s great potential here, and we’re gonna need to step up and turbocharge and I’m gonna need you as the board to really work with everybody, the different department heads, to get them involved in the safety, to understand what we’re doing.”

Doing so, he added, is mutually beneficial to employees, department heads and county taxpayers. Bobby Shomo of Shomo-Madsen Insurance then joined Schade at the podium and fielded questions from the supervisors.

Schade said the committee is currently meeting monthly, and he was willing to commit to attending at least four of the meetings a year himself. Auditor/Recorder Nan Benson commented that he had recommended sending out a 10-question survey to all employees on the safety culture within the county, and it goes back to IMWCA, which she said has been successful in the past. The last one in Marshall County was completed a year and a half ago.

Board Chairwoman Carol Hibbs then asked Schade if he felt the current safety committee had “the right representation.”

“I think you have the right representation. I think you have a couple departments that need to be a little more, they need to be represented more there just to make every monthly meeting. But I think a lot of the right people are there,” Schade said. “I think you have people that are concerned with safety. I just think, again, we kind of try to let you move at your speed. I always try to do that, but sometimes, we just kind of sometimes have to give you a little boot to pick up the pace.”

Shomo jumped in to note that in general, not all meetings are a good use of time, but the safety committee couldn’t allow that to happen any longer. A little over a decade ago, he said the county was in “a really, really bad spot” driven by employees with multiple claims and saw it as indicative of a broader workplace culture. Some people, he added, see claims as a way to make money and avoid work, which is symptomatic of a larger problem.

He cited the city of Newton as a shining example of a proactive culture of safety, and he felt that the current situation in Marshall County was reactive due to the significant recent claims. Ten years ago, Shomo said, the county was losing almost $100,000 to its premiums with the high MOD factor that could have been used to hire additional employees.

Schade told the board he didn’t know of any department head who wanted his or her employees to get injured, but sometimes it was simply a matter of coaching them on how to effectively communicate and put a strong system in place. Shomo also acknowledged that not all departments carried the same level of risk with the jobs performed, so he didn’t expect claims to be spread out evenly.

The premiums will be finalized in April, according to Schade, and he can still go back to his underwriter if progress is demonstrated to claw back discretionary credits.

“I don’t want you to see Dean as adversarial today, but when I first met Dean, I learned that Dean’s previous life was spent riding bulls. And I’m like, ‘How much can the guy care about safety?'” Shomo asked to a round of laughter across the room. “He is exceptionally good at his job, and what he wants from us is a commitment that allows him to go back and negotiate in the office to reclaim some of those discretionary credits that could, and probably should, disappear. So we don’t have a final number yet. This was a proactive response to our claims, and we want to be in the best position we can be in for him to try to negotiate some of those discretionary credits back.”

The board did not take any official action, but Hibbs said they would support the implementation of positive changes however possible. The safety committee is currently comprised of the following members: Sheriff Joel Phillips, County Engineer Paul Geilenfeldt, Assistant Engineer Bruce Dieken, Emergency Management Coordinator Kim Elder, Conservation Operations Supervisor Jeremiah Manken, Buildings and Grounds Director Lucas Baedke, Planning and Zoning Director Tyler Kelly, County Attorney’s Office Administrative Assistant Cristina Garcia, Assessor’s Office Office Manager Sierra Madison, Assessor Blaze Wurr, County Treasurer Deann Tomlinson, Supervisor Kevin Goodman, Schade, Shomo, Eric Shomo of Shomo-Madsen Insurance, Auditor/Recorder Assistant Cassandra Gerstandt and Benson.

Benson told the T-R she would look into a more detailed breakdown of workers’ compensation claims after the new year.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the consent agenda as listed.

• Approved the conflict waiver request for the River’s Edge Subdivision and authorized the chair to sign.

• Approved the FY2025 Cost Allocation Plan and authorized the chair to sign.

• Approved a five-year proposal from Eide Bailly LLP for the annual audit services from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2030.

• Approved a zoning variance for a parcel of land near the Marshall-Hardin County line.

• Approved a resolution setting assessed/taxable values of utility companies payable 2026-2027.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.