Item - 2010.AU17.2

City Council on July 6, 7 and 8, 2010, adopted the following:

1.         City Council request the Deputy City Manager and Chief Financial Officer to review the draft Risk Management Policies and Procedures Manual and ensure that it is current, revised to take into account emerging or changed circumstances, reviewed by all stakeholder groups, finalized and widely circulated to all relevant staff.

2.         City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, in consultation with the City’s insurance advisors, to evaluate the risks and benefits of increasing the City’s level of self insurance.  The results of the evaluation be reported to City Council.

3.         City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to review the possibilities of changing the current insurance fronting arrangement.  Such a review include consultation with staff of the Toronto Transit Commission.  The Director, Corporate Finance also be requested to communicate the results of this review with the City's agencies, boards and commissions.

4.         City Council request the Deputy City Manager and Chief Financial Officer to review and, if appropriate, recommend to Council revisions to the delegated financial authority limits for the settlement of insurance claims.

5.         City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to establish a process to monitor City divisional response time to insurance adjuster requests for information and report results to Divisions where significant delays occur.  The City Manager take appropriate action if response times are not appropriately addressed.

6.         City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to perform regular reviews of the time spent on adjusting services for the same category of claims.  Any files which result in an inordinate amount of time and as a result incur excessive costs be discussed with the third party adjuster.

7.         City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to review the financial thresholds for reporting insurance claims to the Claims Review Group.

8.         City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to review the Loss Control Notice process to ensure all Notices are issued when required, divisional responses are received and progress on corrective action is monitored by Insurance and Risk Management staff.

9.         City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to ensure appropriate action is taken on loss prevention recommendations identified by the insurer.  For recommendations not addressed, specific reasons for not doing so be documented and approved in writing.

10.       City Council request the City Solicitor, in consultation with the Director, Corporate Finance, to prepare a cost-benefit analysis to determine if it would be advantageous to transfer a certain level of legal services currently provided by external private sector legal firms to internal solicitors.  Such an exercise be conducted prior to the next City budget cycle.

11.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to consider the development of a process whereby all legal bills are analyzed and scrutinized on a performance review basis.  Such a process include evaluations of time spent on specific legal files, the level of lawyer expertise assigned to each file along with review of hourly rates.  The review process be documented along with evidence of any follow up on apparent irregularities.

12.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to review the current fee structure arrangement with the adjuster in order to determine whether or not there would be cost savings in minimizing flat fee charges.

13.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to complete the implementation of the Insurance and Risk Management staffing changes approved in the 2009 City budget.

14.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, in consultation with the Chief Information Officer, to interface the Risk Management Information System operated by the City with the claims database managed by the adjuster.

15.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to complete the implementation of an automated process to update the Risk Management Information System quarterly for the cost of all legal services.

16.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to consider the need to record, in the claim files, costs related to adjusting services provided by City staff.

17.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to ensure that user division staff are included in at least an advisory role with the Claims Working Group.

18.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, to complete a comprehensive listing of properties and insured values for the 2011 insurance renewal process.

19.       City Council request the Deputy City Manager and Chief Financial Officer to report at least once each term of Council on appropriate relevant information relating to significant uninsured risks.

20.       City Council request the Director, Corporate Finance, in consultation with appropriate senior management, to consider the cost-effectiveness of consolidating the current City of Toronto insurance program to include certain other City agencies, boards, commissions and corporations.

21.       City Council request the Deputy City Manager and Chief Financial Officer to review the handling of claims arising from private property damage caused by fallen trees and branches involving City-owned trees. The scope of such review to be limited to the number of claims that move on to court after initially being denied, and the amount of funds the City spends to defend against these claims.  The Auditor General to be advised of the findings in this regard.