BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – One Louisiana lawmaker is looking to prevent insurance companies from giving women higher rates just for their gender. As the state grapples with high insurance rates, state Sen. Jay Luneau wants to make sure rates are calculated fairly. His bill filed for the regular legislative session would remove gender as a determination for risk.
“If we’re being fair with everybody, let everybody pay the rates they should be paying. And I think that’s the best thing to do,” Sen. Luneau said. “Why are we discriminating against women in Louisiana when it comes to automobile insurance rates, when there are actuarial studies that show that women tend to get less speeding tickets than men they need, they tend to be involved in less fatal accidents than men.”
Luneau has brought this bill before in 2020 and it did not pass. He said it faced opposition from the insurance companies and the insurance commissioner.
“My suggestion would be if they don’t have a legitimate reason to go up on their rates like they were being actuarially sound before with men, why should they go up now? It doesn’t make sense. However, if the only reason is to maintain their level of billions of dollars in profits, I guess that makes sense,” Luneau said.
They claimed it could raise the rates for men, but Luneau wants to know why they use gender for their rate calculations.
“We’ve not had anybody from the insurance industry come to committee and testify and tell us why they’re doing that. We’ve had a lot of lobbyists who work for the insurance folks come in and say, ‘Oh, we don’t know,’” Luneau said.
He also anticipates pushback on regulating the insurance companies. Several other states have already put a ban on using gender when determining rates.
“We mandate that people have it. If you’re going to drive on the highways and state of Louisiana, you have no choice but to have insurance,” Luneau said. “So, therefore, it’s one of those things that should be governed and regulated more carefully.”
He hopes women will get behind the bill to bring more fairness into the rate calculations. The bill will be debated in the session that begins on April 10.
