Texas Municipal League Inter-Government Risk Pool (TMLIRP)

Texas Municipal League Inter-Government Risk Pool (TMLIRP)

The Texas Municipal League established TMLIRP in 1974 after commercial carriers abandoned the Texas public-entity market, leaving cities and towns without viable liability coverage. Today the pool functions as a member-owned, nonprofit risk-sharing mechanism governed by a Board of Trustees chaired by Bert Lumbreras, with day-to-day management led by Executive Director Jeff Thompson. More than 2,800 Texas municipalities, counties, housing authorities, and special districts participate, making it among the largest public-entity risk pools in the United States by membership count. TMLIRP's investment operation, run by Villegas, splits into two distinct mandates. The General Investment Portfolio funds operating reserves and claim payments with a conservative ladder of investment-grade municipals, US Treasuries, and agency securities, reflecting statutory constraints under Texas Government Code Chapter 2256. The Lifetime Benefits portfolio is structurally unusual — it separately funds workers' compensation lifetime medical obligations for catastrophically injured first responders, requiring actuarially informed asset-liability matching over multi-decade horizons. The pool's home office at 1821 Rutherford Lane is the Texas Municipal Center, a property that itself appears on TMLIRP's balance sheet as a commercial real estate asset. A second headquarters site on East University Avenue in Georgetown is under development. TMLIRP maintains formal ties to the Association of Governmental Risk Pools and the Government Treasurers' Organization of Texas, the latter providing ongoing investment education for its treasury staff. The pool does not operate as a private-sector insurer, does not participate in venture or private equity, and does not manage third-party capital. Its capital base is entirely member-contributed premiums and accumulated surplus. The Liability, Property, and Workers' Compensation coverages operate as separate self-insurance funds, each with its own claim reserve and surplus allocation. What distinguishes TMLIRP structurally from a generic public-entity insurance pool is the dual-portfolio investment framework that legally and functionally separates ordinary claims reserves from the ultra-long-duration medical obligations tied to line-of-duty injuries. That separation forces the investment office to run two separate asset-liability studies, two separate investment policy statements, and two separate risk budgets — an operational burden that commercial carriers in this line rarely replicate, but one that matches the pool's nonprofit, perpetual-life mandate.