You probably already know Louisiana has the highest auto insurance rates in the nation, but by how much? A USA Today report said it’s now 30% higher than the second-highest state, Michigan. This comes despite passage last year of tort reform legislation that backers said was going to result in lower auto insurance rates.
"Rates are going up, this year actually,” Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon told a Legislative task force created to address the state’s eye-watering auto insurance rates.
An email to The Advocate confirmed that rates have risen .7% in Louisiana this year so far.
Supporters of tort reform said the law has not had enough time to take effect yet, and blamed the pandemic in part for the delay in savings that they feel will take hold.
“You would have had to have gotten into an accident after January 1st of 2021 to go under the new law of the lower jury trial threshold,” said State Senator Kirk Talbot.
Talbot also blamed the pandemic in part for the lack of auto insurance savings resulting from tort reform.
“The major component of that bill that was left intact from mine was lowering the jury trial thresholds, but as you know, we have not had jury trials,” said Talbot.
That argument got pushback from State Senator Katrina Jackson.
“People keep saying we haven’t had jury trials, but us who practice in this area every day have been in jury trials for the last year,” said Jackson.
The average price for a year of auto insurance coverage in Louisiana is now $2,839 dollars according to USA Today. The lowest rates in the nation are in Maine, where drivers pay about $860 dollars a year.
