House Lawmakers Shelve Louisiana Citizens Rate Review Bill

Lawmakers in the House have rejected a proposal seeking legislative review of large rate hikes for customers of Louisiana’s property insurer of last resort.

The House Insurance Committee scrapped the idea in a 9-4 vote against Senate Bill 19 by St. Mary Parish Sen. Bret Allain.

The Senate unanimously agreed to require annual rate hikes over 25 percent by the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to get approval from the House and Senate insurance committees.

That faced opposition in the House, so Allain reworked the measure to simply require rate hikes above 25 percent to go to the insurance committees for review, not approval.

Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon opposed the idea.

The House committee rejected the rewritten version, killing the bill.