The president the Louisiana State Senate says the process to reform the law surrounding property insurance is moving "slowly, but surely."
He adds that the reduction in insurance rates he hopes those reforms will bring will also come "slowly, but surely."
"The first benchmark is to pull people out of Citizens," Senate President Cameron Henry (R-Metairie) said. "I think after this session, I think we should be able to get 30 or 40 percent of people off of Citizens."
Senate President Cameron Henry says the homeowners in the state's insurer of last resort will provide insurance companies coming into the state a base of customers.
"They can come in, take people out of Citizens, and know that they're giving them a lower rate," Henry said.
However, Henry warns that customers also need to do their own work to get lower rates.
"It's going to take people actively pursuing, like making phone calls every six months, to try to find new insurance companies that have been brought here," Henry said. "The idea of keeping the same insurance company for your whole life--back in the day, that's what we did--that's over now. You have to be shopping once every six months for a new insurance policy."
According to Henry, the reforms will not bring immediate price relief for homeowner insurance policy holders if lawmakers approve the reforms presented to this during the session. Still, Henry says lawmakers must do what they can to ease the state's insurance crisis.
"Are we going to pass five or six bills this session and a month later my insurance is going to go down? No. It's going to take a process to go through that, but we've got to try," Henry said. "We've got to do it because there's not a section of Louisiana--north or south, east or west--that's not directly impacted by the rates of the homeowner's insurance."
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