Times-Picayune reporter Michael Finch II honored with national business journalism award

A Times-Picayune reporter was honored this week with a national business journalism award for his coverage of Louisiana's spiraling property-insurance crisis.

Michael Finch II collected the top prize for medium-sized media outlets in the Personal Finance category of "Best in Business," the annual journalism contest sponsored by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.

Finch's 2022 reporting helped expose a deteriorating situation in Louisiana's property insurance marketplace. A dozen insurance companies that wrote business in Louisiana have failed in the wake of a series of severe storms starting with 2020's Hurricane Laura, and a dozen more have quit writing business here. In areas of the state near the Gulf, it's difficult if not impossible to get a policy from anyone besides Louisiana Citizens, the state-run insurer of last resort, which by law must charge at least 10% above market rates.

Finch showed how Louisiana regulators, in their zeal to trim Citizens' rolls, have handed off thousands of high-risk policies to companies that may not be equipped to deal with them. Finch's stories noted that the four insurers that took on the bulk of these policies all had questionable grades from ratings agencies -- and they all wound up failing.

The "Best in Business" judges called Finch's series "fascinating" and complimented the "excellent use of data and primary sources."