During a recent Nicholasville City Commission workshop, the commission listened to a presentation of a cost recovery program that would help recover cost, time and equipment used during an emergency response for the Nicholasville Fire Department.

The program is offered by Immediate Response Spill Technologies, LLC in Frankfort, and would provide the fire department with emergency response supplies and training while working with insurance companies to help with reimbursement for time and services.

“They come back to the fire station, log on and fill out the information they already gathered for their reporting,” James Riddell of IRST, LLC said. “They fill our side out and hit submit. It goes right to the girls and they do the billing and then you get a check back quarterly or monthly.”

Insurance companies are charged 15 percent of the total invoice amount for services and the program allows the city to receive 100 percent of its invoice for jobs logged in the company’s system.

The company would provide NFD with various spill response tools upfront and free of charge, as well as training for use of the products. A fee of 10 percent would be charged for the cleanup equipment provided to the department. An account would then be created and used much like an escrow account and held until the amount in it equals the value of inventory given to the NFD.

“We can customize each individual customer as long as we set the program in parameters,” Riddell said. “Some are doing exactly what Lexington is doing, some say we want it to go for a, b or c.”

Riddell said other communities have already signed up to be a part of the Cost Recovery Program offered by IRST, LLC, including Lexington, Greendale, Boyle County, Junction City, Mount Vernon, Waddy, Stanford and Clark County.

Using the information on the form submitted through the IRST, LLC online program, the company takes the information and calculates the final invoice amount to bill insurance companies from resulting accidents covered within their parameters. The company’s online system is fully automated and there is no paperwork.

Information received is processed and sent to the responsible party and their insurance to recover costs.

“If they don’t have insurance, we send them a bill personally and we try and collect that way,” Riddell said. “We are not going to go after them if they are a city resident. If they are a non-city resident, we are going to try and get them to pay that.”

City Commissioner Patty Teater asked Riddell if the company had a success rate for non-insured motorists, which Riddell said was somewhere around 30 percent.

“How do we determine which insurance company?” Teater asked. “If I wrecked with commissioner Blackford, I say it’s his fault and he says it’s mine, who are we billing?”

Riddell said at that point, IRST, LLC would split the bill and bill both insurance companies. For accidents which end up in court, Riddell said as soon as a claim gets filed, the insurance company will pay IRST, LLC who will then pay the city.

“I think it is a no-brainer, why wouldn’t we do it?” Teater said.

Mayor Pete Sutherland asked Chief Mark Case to design the program and do the ground work to present to the city commission in the near future for a deciding vote. For more information, visit irst.us/how-it-works.