Insurance Obstacle Overcome

By MARK EVANS

mevans@stegenherald.com

With last minute help of Lee Lottes of Lakenan Insurance, the benefit go kart race to aid Pete Unverferth was able to be held at the Ste. Genevieve County Fairgrounds Sunday night.

The fate of racing in general was up in the air Thursday morning, with more insurance policy discussions taking place during the county commission meeting.

The commission had previously expressed concern because the fair board’s liability insurance policy had a $1 million cap per occurrence and an aggregate cap  of $2 million. A new state statute requires entities with sovereign immunity like the county to have $1 coverage per occurrence and $3 million aggregate.

One complication was that Ellen Emmendorfer of Emmendorfer Insurance Agency in Perryville, the insurance broker who handles the fair board, was on vacation.

Fair board president Keith Skaggs and associate county clerk Michele Gatzemeyer  both said they had talked to an associate of Emmendorfer about the issue.  Skaggs said it was his understanding that the aggregate coverage was supposed to be increased to $3 million when they new policy takes effect July 1.

He said that was “being changed out now.”

However, when an associate of Emmendorfer returned a call to Gatzemeyer, she said that “That’s what they’re shooting for,” but that it wasn’t looking good.

The company Emmendorfer had been using to cover the fairgrounds had refused to go to $3 million, so she was going to have to look around for other options. That would leave Sunday’s benefit raise without the required coverage.

When Lottes came in later, he was updated on the situation. He noted that “That market is fairly limited,” referring to companies that would cover special events like races. He said that Emmendorfer “is good, she’s very good,” but said he would make some calls and try to “cross-market” the situation, with the deadline fast approaching.

“I  want you to know I’m trying to come up with a solution,” Lottes said.