Many homeowners across the state are sick of getting jerked around by their home insurers. Could there be a legislative solution to this ongoing crisis? Some lawmakers are optimistic.
Pre-filing for the March regular legislative session begins Tuesday. WWL spoke with several Southeast Louisiana lawmakers who said they’re ready to make home insurance reforms a priority.
“I think you are going to see a lot of legislation that deals with the amount of adjusters that are assigned to a particular case,” said Senate Insurance Committee Chairman Kirk Talbot.
New Orleans Representative Matthew Willard highlighted several areas of interest, specifically on the enforcement side.
“One of the biggest things that we have to address for Louisiana is the structure that we have to hold these bad actors accountable,” said Willard who noted other states allow for homeowners who take their insurers to court to potentially win punitive damages.
The New Orleans Democrat also said there’s interest in addressing the slow-rolling of payments, specifically the fact that insurers have thirty days to issue payment after a settlement is reached, but can extend that to 60 days under some loose rules.
“In the wake of a hurricane people are at their lowest spots in life and they just want to be made whole,” said Willard.
Abita Springs Representative Larry Frieman said one effort will involve holding disaster plans filed by insurers to higher, more specific standards.
“Do you have a plan to bring in the proper number of adjusters, and how do you house those adjusters, and how do you communicate with those adjusters?” said Frieman who cautioned against going too far in pushing home insurers. “Insurance carriers are not obligated to write insurance in Louisiana so we can’t swing that pendulum so far to the other side that we run them off.”
While lawmakers appear to be brimming with ideas about how to head off future issues, it appears unlikely that any legislative remedies will help homeowners deal with current, Ida-related issues.
“I’m really not so sure that we could fix the current problem, because it is almost, you know, hard to fix something that has already occurred, but we have to fix this going forward,” said Frieman.
