Perry County Judge-Executive Denny Ray Noble and KACo representative Sue Porter hold up a ceremonial check showing the amount of funds set to go back to the county from the insurance carrier.

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HAZARD — Officials with the Perry County Fiscal Court had a rare thing happen last week, they were given a check from an insurance company. However, this is not a normal insurance company, it is owned by its users and the users are the ones that see the benefits of the profits.

KACo, or Kentucky Association of Counties offers workers compensation insurance to all county employees. Perry County joined this insurance within the first few years of the program. Currently there are 113 of Kentucky’s 120 counties are using KACo.

By all of the counties working together to manage their insurance plans, they are able to receive dividend checks from time to time. This also keeps the initial payments low, which is a big help to the governments and ultimately the taxpayers.

Due to Perry County being a part owner of the company, and having very few workers compensation claims and being a part of this program for so long, they just received a check for $13,665, along with an 11 percent reduction of workers compensation cost.

“I think there are five overall (counties) that are getting a reduction,” Sue Porter, a representative of KACo, told the court during a check presentation last week. “You are getting the largest, and not only are they getting an 11 percent reduction in your workers comp premium, you are getting a dividend which is a shareholders dividend for being owners of the company.”

This is not the first time that Perry County has received a dividend check. In 2010 they received $16,745. In total, Perry County has received over $30,400.

“As shareholders of the program they get to reap the benefits of any surplus that we have,” said Porter.

Along with the money that has gone back to the county as a whole, the Perry County Ambulance Authority has their own workers compensation policy with KACo, and they too got a dividend check this year. They got over $15,000 from KACo.