The Board of Directors of Montana State Fund has approved a 5% reduction in premium rate level. President of the Montana State Fund Laurence Hubbard explains.

“This is an average rate decrease which is spread throughout the 26,000 customers and the various businesses they engage in,” said Hubbard. “It caps a long trend, almost 11 years, of rate decreases or holding rates flat for Montana State Fund since 2007. That is 44 percentage points lower than it was in 2007. This is all very good news for Montana.”

Hubbard says rates have decreased due to improvements in work place safety, but Montana still has a worse workplace safety record than its neighbors.

“We are a pretty rural state,” Hubbard said. “People have to travel long distances on highways to transact business. There is a bit more exposure I think in Montana than some states, but even our neighboring states like Wyoming and North Dakota have lower accident rates than Montana. We clearly know there is something about our culture that creates an environment where people are at risk a bit more and we can improve that culture.”

According to Hubbard, over the past two years, MSF has returned a record of 70 million dollars in dividend to Montana businesses because of improvements.

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