Columbia City’s Board of Works and Safety on Jan. 14 approved a marketing agreement that lets Utility Service Partners offer a private‑label service‑line warranty to city water and sewer customers, with contractual limits the board negotiated on branding and customer data use.

The agreement — described in meeting materials as endorsed by the National League of Cities and presented to the board for approval — permits Utility Service Partners to market a voluntary warranty product to individual utility customers. City staff told the board the warranty covers service lines from a home to the water meter for water service and from a home to the main for sewer service; enrolled customers would receive reimbursement or repair services under the vendor’s policy terms.

Why it matters: the program offers a voluntary option for homeowners to insure privately owned service lines while the city retains control over whether and how the vendor uses city branding and receives customer data. Staff said the initial contract term is three years with automatic one‑year renewals; the vendor must report policies sold and remits a small per‑policy amount into a city‑specific account, which the city could later appropriate for programs such as a hardship fund.

Board discussion and contractual limits: City staff said they negotiated restrictions so the vendor cannot broadly use the city logo without approval. They also described data protections and reporting requirements: the vendor will inform the city how many policies were sold and deposit a small fee per policy into the city account. Board members asked about the reporting cadence and whether the city would be notified of customer counts; staff said the vendor will report and that the sums are expected to be small unless high volumes of policies are sold.

Term and termination: Staff described the initial term as three years with automatic one‑year renewals thereafter, and said the city could discontinue the agreement if the vendor failed to meet obligations or misrepresented offerings to residents. Staff characterized the program as voluntary for residents and not as a city insurance program.

Board action: A board member moved to enter the marketing agreement “as presented”; another seconded and the motion passed unanimously.

Next steps: Staff listed follow-up tasks including finalizing contract language to restrict branding and data use and receiving initial vendor reporting on policy sales.