Llano City reviews 2025–26 employee insurance options; council declines immediate adoption

Llano City Council on Tuesday reviewed proposals for the city’s employee benefits package for fiscal 2025–26, but did not adopt a plan after a presentation by independent brokers and a failed motion to accept one of the proposed options.

The discussion mattered because the council must set budget assumptions for health, dental, vision, life and long-term disability coverage and because insurers and the Texas Health Benefits Pool impose renewal deadlines. Javier Reyes, identified in the meeting as “president of Insurance Brokers,” told the council he had solicited competitive quotes and described differences among the offers on price, networks and benefit design.

Reyes said carriers generally could not match the city’s current “inclusive” office-visit copay — a plan feature that covers many in-office procedures under a copay rather than applying the deductible — and that was a key reason renewals were limited. He told the council the carrier that most closely matched the city’s current design would produce a roughly 4% increase on the existing plan, an increase the brokers and council analyzed alongside two alternative plan designs labeled “Option 3” and “Option 4.”

Under the figures presented, a straight renewal of the current plan (a 4% increase) would raise the city’s total cost by about…