Louisiana Suspends Legislative Session
Louisiana has suspended its 2020 regular legislative session until March 31.
State senators, representatives, stakeholders and citizens with an interest in legislative proposals have been instructed by House and Senate leadership to work together remotely via phone and email on issues to be address when the Legislature convenes again.
Auto insurance and tort reform were expected to be hot topics in the legislature this year.
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards is backing bills aimed at prohibiting discrimination insurance rate setting. According to the governor’s office, Edwards is backing several pieces of legislation filed by Democratic Sen. Jay Lenau of Alexandria that address discriminatory rate setting. They are: SB 13, SB 14, SB 15 and SB 16.
Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, a Republican, is strongly in favor of tort reform with regard to the auto insurance dilemma. In an interview with Insurance Journal in September 2019, Donelon said the main factor driving the high cost of auto insurance in Louisiana “is our highest in the nation claims-to-litigation ratio. We have a tort system that’s broken, that needs to be fixed.”
He added that tort reform is needed so that more companies can come to Louisiana and “do business in our state under a new set of rules that is not so onerous for auto insurers in our judicial environment.”
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