R.I. House Members to Introduce Hurricane Insurance Bills

The leaders of a special Rhode Island House commission studying the effects of natural disasters on property insurance costs plan to introduce legislation next week on insurance practices connected to hurricane risk.

Commission Chairman Paul W. Crowley (D-Dist. 75, Newport) and Corporations Committee Chairman Brian Patrick Kennedy (D-Dist. 38, Hopkinton, Westerly), who is also a member of the commission, said they plan to introduce the two bills on Wednesday, May 30.

The legislation pertains to regulatory and statutory issues raised during the commission’s hearings this year on the homeowners’ insurance crisis caused by reinsurers’ post-Katrina expansion of their definitions of hurricane risk.

Crowley emphasized that the legislation should be seen as “the beginning and not the conclusion” of the special House commission’s work.

Source: R.I. House