The state senate today is scheduled to take up a bill that will give the Louisiana insurance commissioner more power over insurance companies. The insurance commissioner, however, says he doesn't want it!
Just a little over a year ago, Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law allowing insurance companies raise rates with less regulatory oversight. Now lawmakers want to grant the insurance commissioner authority to veto rate increases for a broad range of reasons. But insurance commissioner Tim Temple says he doesn't want or need that much power.
"This sends a terrible message to the industry, which we want to have in Louisiana," Temple said.
He told WWL's Newell Normand that the bills is the opposite of the free-market insurance reforms he campaigned on.
"It's more like China," he said. "It's government rate-setting."
Temple said Louisiana, with a little more than one percent of the U.S. population, simply is not big enough that insurance companies need our business, and if they find regulations to be overly burdensome, they will just stop writing policies in the Pelican State.