BATON ROUGE, La (BRPROUD) – AARP hosted a Monday, Feb. 27 town hall for Louisiana homeowners to have their questions answered by the Louisiana Department of Insurance.
Tens of thousands of homeowners have been dealing with an insurance crisis after multiple companies folded or left the state, which raised premiums and forced residents to scramble in hopes of obtaining coverage.
More than 35,000 people tuned in to the meeting to receive answers from the state’s Insurance Deputy Commissioner Ron Henderson.
“We are looking at very different types of problem-solving techniques to try to get at the core of this issue,” said Henderson.
During a special session in January, legislatures voted to fund the Insure Louisiana Incentive program with the aim of drawing more companies to the state. Henderson said they are already seeing movement.
“We’ve had companies that have inquired,” Henderson said. “We have had one company that has put in their application as of Thursday last week. We have 10-plus companies who are actually going to put an application in.”
Their hopes are to have companies making new policies by the summer.
“We know we want them writing business and knowing what is on their book of business before June 1,” Henderson explained.
When private insurance companies fled the state, many people were forced to turn to Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, which is described as a “nonprofit organization created to provide insurance products for residential and commercial property applicants who are in good faith entitled, but unable, to procure insurance through the voluntary insurance marketplace.”
But when some lost their insurance due to the company filing bankruptcy or found themselves outpriced by those who stayed, thousands turned to Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.
“We went from 36,000 policies back two years ago, now, 125,000 policies,” Henderson said.
This spiked the price of their premiums.
“The bigger issue is getting as many policies off of citizens as possible,” Henderson said.
AARP Louisiana Advocacy said they took a poll during the town hall and asked “Do you think State elected officials should do more to address the homeowners’ insurance crisis in Louisiana?”
The results revealed that 94% said, “Yes, state elected officials should do more to address this crisis.”
“This is affecting thousands of our members across the state and so we will not only be monitoring this issue but we will be advocating on behalf of our membership,” said AARP Louisiana Advocacy Director Andrew Muhl,
If you are interested in joining advocacy efforts, contact Andrew Muhl at amuhl@aarp.org
To contact Ron Henderson at the Louisiana Department of Insurance, call (225) 219-4774 or call ron.henderson@ldi.la.gov.
Additionally, the Louisiana Department of Insurance’s website can be accessed via www.ldi.la.gov and its phone number is 1-800-259-5300.
