Gonzales City Council meets to discuss city insurance provider

GONZALES — Gonzales City Council is set to meet for a short housekeeping meeting tonight, where they will discuss and consider a resolution approving the city's 2018 insurance provider for health, dental, vision and life

According to city information, the City of Gonzales annually has Frost Insurance, an independent insurance agency, review the city's current coverage for health, dental, vision and life insurance.

Frost Insurance looks at the city's providers, which are Texas Municipal League (TML), Principal and Colonial. Frost looks at the coverage each offers and compares it to multiple other providers, offering similar coverage.

After examining terms and coverage Frost Insurance schedules the city's annual open enrollment and creates benefit books. Throughout the year, Frost Insurance also helps city employees with claim issues and assists in other insurance matters.

According to city data, in previous years, TML has always had the cheapest monthly premiums for health insurance. This contributes to why the City of Gonzales has been with TML for more than 20 years. The City of Gonzales received their new rates from TML that would start January of 2018. There was an estimated 10 percent increase in the premium for employee-only coverage. Currently the city pays 100 percent of the health insurance for each full-time employee, but pays no part of dependent coverage. The City of Gonzales currently pays TML $470.08 per month, per full-time employee. With the new rates that the City received from TML, the monthly rate starting January 2018 will increase to $517.10 which comes out to $47.02 more a month per employee.

Principal is the city's dental, vision, life and accidental death and dismemberment insurance provider. The city has been with Principal since January 2015.

If the city decides to go with Humana, the city would no longer have to pay Frost Insurance $28,000 annually, to secure the best coverages, because Frost was able to work their commission into Humana’s proposal. Frost Insurance projects Humana could save the city $129,593.42 for 2018.

Gonzales City Council meets at 6 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, Oct. 24, at Gonzales Municipal Building, 820 St. Joseph Street, in Council Chambers. The next regularly-scheduled meeting is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7.