IL House speaker signals insurance regulation described as 'ill-advised'

(The Center Square) – The speaker of the Illinois House is signaling that insurance regulation will be a priority for state lawmakers when the General Assembly reconvenes later this month.

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, was asked about the upcoming legislative session when he addressed the City Club of Chicago on Tuesday.

“Everything is going to come down around affordability issues. I think folks are concerned about their homeowners insurance, their car insurance. Anybody happy about their car insurance?” Welch asked.

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias has proposed banning auto insurers from using age, credit scores or zip codes to determine rates. The secretary’s Driving Change campaign featured eight virtual town hall meetings geared toward large metropolitan areas around the state.

Giannoulias also pushed for car insurance regulation when he visited several Chicago churches one Sunday last November.

“We’re going to treat this like a political campaign,” Giannoulias said when he launched the effort last July and was joined by state Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, and state Rep. Rita Mayfield, D-Waukegan.

S.T. Karnick, senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, said government regulations never work to lower prices.

“What’s going to happen in the case of car insurance, for example, is you’re going to raise prices, ultimately because insurers are going to get out of the state because they can’t make a profit that way,” Karnick told The Center Square.

Karnick said it was national inflation that caused U.S. insurance rates to rise 15% in 2024, but he said rates came down 1% in the first half of 2025. Illinois premiums jumped 18% in 2024.

“The inflation was caused by excessive federal spending, and that spending has not been growing anywhere near the rate that it was in 2021 and 2022,” Karnick explained.

Karnick said the concept of moral hazard is very important.

“If you make it so that car insurance, for example, is lower-priced than it would ordinarily be for people who are not good drivers, then you will get more drivers who are not good and are making bad choices,” Karnick said, adding that such a move would raise the price of insurance.

State regulation of homeowners insurance may also be on the General Assembly’s to-do list as lawmakers prepare to meet for the first time since fall veto session.

“We left some things on the table, particularly around the insurance issues. Of course, our budget is always going to be a top priority,” Welch said Tuesday.

The House rejected legislation giving the Illinois Department of Insurance power to object to homeowners insurance rates. The measure passed in the state Senate but met opposition from both sides of the aisle in the House.

Karnick said state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, objected that House Bill 3799 did not also attack the auto industry.

“That is the problem right there, because this is an attack on an industry that is completely ill-advised in that it’s not going to help consumers. It’s going to hurt the businesses. It’s going to hurt everybody,” Karnick said.

Karnick said Illinois currently has a lot of companies providing insurance, but some would leave if the state began regulating rates.

“It is the most ill-advised approach you could possibly take,” Karnick concluded.

The Illinois Senate’s first meeting of 2026 is scheduled Tuesday, Jan. 13. The Illinois House is set to return Jan. 20.