Prichard city government is bracing for a coverage gap that officials say leaves police cars, fire trucks, garbage trucks and the employees who drive them financially exposed. At a specially called meeting Friday, City Council President Traci Hale told council members and residents that American Municipal Insurance Corp. (AMIC), the carrier that has covered the city’s liability risks, had rejected Prichard’s appeal to keep its policy active. “As of 12:01 (a.m.) … we will no longer have insurance covered by AMIC,” Hale said from the podium, meaning coverage was set to lapse just hours after the meeting ended.
Why the Lapse Matters
Municipal liability insurance is what typically stands behind a city when something goes wrong. If a city employee is involved in an on-the-job accident, or is sued over actions taken in the course of their work, the policy is usually what pays for a legal defense and covers damages up to a set limit. Without it, City Council Attorney Moshae Donald Walker warned employees at the meeting that they would be on their own. “They should expect if there’s any liability or loss that occurs within the scope of their employment that the city of Prichard will not indemnify them,” she said.
Walker went further after the meeting, cautioning that any city employee who gets behind the wheel of a municipal vehicle after midnight could be taking on personal financial risk. “That’s not to say that the city does not have a legal duty to indemnify them, but with where the city’s finances are currently, the city probably will not be able to pay for a defense for any city employee that is operating within the lines of their employment,” she said.
Council Orders Vehicles Turned In — Again
Facing that exposure, the council voted 3-0 Friday to recall all non-emergency city vehicles. It was the third time council members have made that demand of city employees; the previous two requests were largely ignored, with vehicles staying in employees’ hands. The recall does not apply to emergency vehicles such as police cruisers and fire apparatus, but Walker acknowledged that first responders are losing their coverage as well. Asked directly whether the Fire Department would respond to a call Saturday, she offered a less-than-certain answer: “We hope so. They should show up.”
The uncertainty extended to Prichard’s rank-and-file. A man who identified himself as a Prichard police detective pressed council members on what the lapse would mean for his paycheck. “If we can’t work, we can’t drive these vehicles, are we still getting paid?” he asked. No one on the council could give him a definitive answer.
Garbage Collection Declared a State of Emergency
The insurance lapse also reaches into an essential city service most residents notice immediately: trash pickup. Because garbage trucks are covered under the same lapsing policy, the council voted 3-0 to declare a formal “state of emergency” for garbage collection. Hale told the meeting that RDK Truck Sales, the company that leases Prichard its garbage trucks, has demanded the vehicles be returned now that the insurance covering them is set to disappear.
Council members said an outside contractor — apparently working under an agreement signed by Mayor Carletta Davis — has already been handling garbage pickup for about a week. That arrangement lines up with statements the mayor made earlier in the week signaling her intent to outsource trash collection going forward. Council members made clear Friday that they oppose making that switch permanent and have not voted to approve any long-term contract. However, given the immediate crisis over insurance and leased trucks, they agreed to allow the outside pickup to continue on a short-term, emergency basis.
What Led to the Cancellation
According to city officials, AMIC informed Prichard it was ending the policy because of a high volume of claims filed against the city, coupled with what the insurer described as repeated difficulty obtaining claim-related information from the city during the previous administration. The city’s mayor’s office did not respond to questions Friday afternoon as the deadline approached.
The cancellation comes as a reversal in tone from what Mayor Davis told reporters just a day earlier. At a news conference Thursday, she downplayed the likelihood that Prichard would actually lose its coverage, noting the city had already paid for insurance through Oct. 17 and that she anticipated receiving replacement quotes from other insurance companies as soon as Monday in case the existing policy fell through. “We are hopeful that we’ll be able to get some things put in place before we … have to take any those drastic measures like not being able to service or use any of our vehicles,” Davis said at the time.
That optimism did not appear to reach the council. Councilman Roy Smith II, the council’s vice president and chair of its Bid Committee, said after Friday’s meeting that the mayor had never shared that information with the council. “That’s news to my ears. … I’m the VP of the City Council and I’m the chair of the Bid Committee,” he said. “I would love to have that come across my desk.”
Walker noted that it is common practice for municipalities to pay insurance premiums months ahead of time, which explains why the city had coverage paid through October even as the policy is being canceled early. She said that fact doesn’t change Saturday’s hard deadline, though she added that Prichard is expected to receive a partial refund for the unused portion of the premium. Hale used the moment to press for more transparency from the mayor’s office going forward. “We need to stop portraying to the citizens and the employees of the city that they are OK and fine, and that we have insurance coverage,” she said.
Residents React
Frustration with the mayor was evident among residents who attended the Friday session. “We should have her impeached,” said resident Katie Davis. “I don’t know how we do it, but I do believe she came into this office to destroy this city.”
Not everyone in the room framed the situation as purely alarming. Ivan Peterson, who is in the process of relocating to Hollinger’s Island from New Jersey, said he attended the meeting because he is weighing whether to open a comedy club in Prichard. “It’s a concern,” he said of the insurance crisis. “You know, because we — you know, the police vehicles are under that policy. But we need to have, you know, some type of safety. … If we don’t have that, it could be a problem. However, I do believe this could be turned around.”
Background: A City Already Under Financial Strain
Prichard, a city of roughly 20,000 residents just northwest of Mobile in Mobile County, has weathered years of well-documented financial difficulty, including a municipal bankruptcy filing in 2020 tied largely to underfunded pension obligations. Friday’s emergency meeting adds a new and immediate dimension to those long-running budget pressures: a potential same-day gap in the insurance coverage that protects both the city’s workforce and the public services, like trash collection and emergency response, that residents rely on daily. City officials indicated they hope to have replacement coverage or other arrangements in place soon, but as of Friday evening, no new policy had been confirmed.