A storm surge of Louisiana lawsuits will batter struggling insurers

Commentary

Maybe there's always something of a Friday rush at many courthouses, as people file lawsuits or petitions or documents that have a deadline for official processing.

But for the many parishes in western Louisiana, the courthouses might be more than ordinarily busy today.

And it's not a happy day for anyone, not the courthouse workers, nor the plaintiffs, nor the insurance companies that are going to be sued because of their actions following Hurricane Laura.

The devastating storm that two years ago demolished homes and businesses across the southwestern part of the state, and brought unusual hurricane-force winds as far north as Shreveport, is the catalyst for the storm surge of lawsuits.

Louisiana law specifies that hurricane survivors have up to 24 months after the damage was inflicted to file suit against their insurers, meaning those affected by Hurricane Ida will face a similar cutoff date around this time next year.

Unfortunately for both victims and insurers, the two years that have passed since Laura's dramatic arrival have resulted in many aggrieved policyholders. People who feel that they have been grievously shortchanged by insurance payments know about the deadlines.

In some cases, insurance contracts provide for one-year deadlines on lawsuits contesting underpayments, and there was a rush then: According to TRAC Reports, a data analysis project by Syracuse University, the federal court for Louisiana's western district took the top spot in insurance lawsuits per capita filed nationwide in August 2021 — by a long shot — with 774 cases that month alone.

Of those cases, 91% were filed in the Lake Charles court, which recently moved back into the city's federal building after being housed in Lafayette, an hour away, because of storm damage.

We are as concerned as anyone when people file lawsuits instead of resolving disputes short of a courtroom. We are a litigious society, too much so sometimes. But even in a conservative area, people who might share those concerns are forced to protect themselves.

The insurance industry is battered by storms too, but it has clearly underperformed in southwestern Louisiana's time of troubles.

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