Insurance is never a dull subject in Louisiana, as it often an epicenter for activity every year during hurricane season.
As he counts down his final days as the state’s Insurance Commissioner, Jim Donelon joined WWL’s Tommy Tucker to explain what residents need to know about insurance this year.
“We are four times more often visited over the past hundred years by name storms than Florida or by... Texas on a per capita basis – four times,” Donelon said. “We’re the center of the target. It’s obvious. You just look at the map and you see that. So… we’re affected.”
After the fallout from major storms such as 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, there has been a depopulation process underway at Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance. This corporation was established “to operate certain insurance programs which shall function exclusively as residual market mechanisms to provide essential property insurance for residential and commercial property in the State, solely for applicants who are in good faith entitled, but are unable, to procure insurance through the voluntary market.”
For more than a decade, Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance has been “depopulating” policies – meaning they allow private insurance companies to take over these policies. Usually, this makes things more affordable for the policyholders.
“I thank the governor and the legislative leadership for putting another $10 million into that program, which will allow us next month to go out with a second round of incentive money,” said Donelon of the latest advances in the depopulation project, which is in its 18th round. He added that it “is off to a very impressive start in the first month in three weeks, April and May.”
In order to benefit from the depopulation program, Donelon said Louisiana residents should contact their insurance agents.
Hurricane season kicked off last month, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association predicted that the season would be normal (40%) chance. However, the chances of an above average or below average were the same at 30%.
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