AUBURN – A group of 60 retired city workers won’t lose their life insurance death benefits, councilors pledged Monday.

But City Manager Pat Finnigan said she needs to find some other way to preserve the term life policies for those workers.

“For many of them, this is the only death benefit they have,” Finnigan said.

The city provided life insurance benefits for its workers through a John Hancock life insurance policies until the mid-1990s. At that point, most city staffers decided to move to a policy through the Maine Municipal Association.

And a handful of retirees kept the old policy, and Finnigan said it cost the city a steady $11,000 per year to maintain it.

That changed recently, when Met Life bought out the John Hancock policy.

“There were too few workers for the group of retirees,” Finnigan said. Met Life announced that city’s premium would balloon from $11,000 per year to $19,000 per year.

On Monday, she asked councilors what they wanted to do. The city could pay the higher premium, strand the retirees, or shop around for a better policy.

Councilor Marcel Bilodeau suggested the city take its $11,000 and find a better deal.

“I’d be surprised if we couldn’t find a better product that would provide fixed costs to the city,” Bilodeau said.

Finnigan said she has until the end of October to find an alternative.