For the first time in five years Louisiana’s property insurers are taking rate decreases, Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple said in an interview with LaPolitics, and those decreases are equal to the number of individual increases.
“And those increases are much smaller than they had been,” Temple said, adding, “I think 20 new companies have gone through the licensing and vetting process by the department to write homeowners’ in our state. And maybe four are actually writing now to the tune of somewhere around $200 million of new premium in those companies, meaning that’s $200 million of premium that people moved from their existing company to these new companies because they’re saving money.”
As for auto insurance, Temple said the state has seen more than 40 companies take a rate decrease in private passenger coverage.
“The companies say the reason is they’ve had fewer accidents and the fewer accidents that happened, then the fewer claims that are filed and the fewer claims are filed, then obviously less bodily injury and litigation for that,” Temple said. “That’s not Louisiana-specific, that’s nationwide. The legal reform from last year’s session didn’t take effect until January 1 of this year. So, I think we still have additional private passenger auto rate reduction to be experienced in our state once these things become law and start to work through the system. Where we’ve not seen any progress is on commercial auto and commercial trucking.”
Asked why that’s the case, the commissioner noted, “Whenever those vehicles get in wrecks, they aren’t being sued for $15,000 or $30,000 or $50,000. They’re being sued for $100,000 or $500,000 or $1 million or more if they have umbrellas and higher policy limits. That’s where that general damage cap would have made a difference. Until we tackle that, I don’t think that we’re going to see a lot of improvement in commercial auto.”
—They said it: “I’m the only Republican legislator that had anything vetoed by Jeff Landry this session.” –Rep. Joe Orgeron, in Louisiana Illuminator
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
