Temple pushes for special session on insurance reform

State Insurance Commission Tim Temple is pushing for a special session to tackle what he calls "serious insurance reform."

During a Town Hall meeting Thursday in Jennings with State Rep. Troy Romero, Temple spoke with local residents, insurance agents, real estate agents, attorneys and other stakeholders about the state's insurance crisis and his plan to address the issue.

Temple, who is completing his first term as insurance commissioner, wants the state to call a special session on insurance reform to focus on those concerns and make insurance more affordable and accessible to residents and businesses.

"This is the deepest insurance crisis our state has ever faced," Temple said, stressing that premiums for property, auto and health insurance in Louisiana have continued to increase compared to other states. "We've got to rebalance this. If we don't we are just going to continue to pay the highest rates with no end in sight."

He said many residents, especially the elderly and low-income, are struggling with the rising cost of insurance and cost of protecting their properties, while businesses are leaving the state because of the insurance.

"You could have the safest neighborhood in the city, and you can have the smoothest roads in the parish, and you can have all bridges across all the rivers that we have, but if you can't afford to live in that neighborhood because your homeowners insurance is too high, and you can't afford to drive on that road or cross that bridge because your auto insurance and your trucking insurance is too high, what are we doing," he said.

Romero knows from personal experience that Louisiana has some of the highest premiums and highest rates.

"My homeowners insurance just last month went from $2,338 to $8,000," Romero said. "I called him (Temple) and asked what am I supposed to do? Who can pay this? This is as much as my house note was at one time."

On the advice of Temple, Romero said he "shopped around" for insurance and was able to get it down to $3,700.

Since 2020, Temple said, the state has faced four major hurricanes resulting in 800,0000 claims with the insurance industry paying $24 billion in claims.

"And some people didn't have a good claims experience, but nonetheless, the insurance industry still paid $24 billion of property claims," he said. "But they only collected $2 billion and paid out $24 billion."

Temple said there are no laws in Louisiana that say insurance companies have to do business here and put their capital at risk.

He said the state is working with the insurance industry to attract capital and encourage more insurance companies to want to come to Louisiana by making it more desirable to do business here.

Attracting more insurance companies who want to do business in the state and boosting competition, will result in lower premiums, he said.

"We have companies going through the application process to come to Louisiana and start writing homeowners insurance," he said.

Over half a dozen other companies that were doing business in Louisiana, but were not writing homeowners insurance, are currently seeking to write homeowners insurance.

"I anticipate we will start seeing these new companies pop up after the beginning of the year," he said. "But that's not success. Success is when you start to see premiums go down, but bringing new companies into Louisiana is going to get it there."

He said state lawmakers were successful earlier this year in repealing the state's three-year rule, which prohibited insurance companies from canceling a policy or raising its deductible if the policy was in effect for more than three years. Under the new rule, insurance companies can drop 5 percent of their policies annually as long as they aren't concentrated in a single parish.

Temple also wants to create a permanent funding source to continue the Louisiana Fortify Homes Program which provides grants to homeowners to strengthen their roofs and make them more hurricane resilient. The program awards up to $10,000 to homeowners who repair their roofs to meet specific storm-resistant standards to help keep shingles on rooftops and the interiors dry. The program qualifies homeowners for a discount on their insurance or a tax deduction.