BATON ROUGE, La. — The Commissioner of Insurance hosted a town hall meeting Monday with LA Rep. Emily Chenevert. Temple spoke about the state of insurance in Louisiana and took questions from residents.
“We’re in the worst crisis this state has ever faced when it comes to insurance,” said Temple.
He says that is thanks to a series of catastrophic natural disasters that insurance companies had to shell out billions of dollars for.
In a short time they had “800 thousand claims and 24 billion dollars paid out,” he said.
Temple says the steep bill is why several companies pulled out and left customers with little to no competition and high premiums.
“Now we are seeing what happens when you don’t have competitive market,” said Temple.
But Temple believes when it comes to property insurance the state is headed in the right direction after passing a package of insurance bills into law. He says several unnamed companies are currently working to come back to Louisiana.
“It demonstrates the changes we made are working,” he said. “The insurance companies are telling us the ‘what you passed is restoring confidence.”
When it comes to drivers and business owners who purchase commercial auto insurance the road is still rocky.
Monday Cully Frisard, owner of Frisard Companies, questioned Temple about fraudulent insurance claims and litigation he says will put trucking companies out of business.
“Start regulating the attorneys, start regulating the doctors like you regulate truckers,” said Frisard.
Temple says his office is working to find fraud and prosecute it.
“I want to prosecute more fraud in Louisiana, all of it,” said Temple.
Temple and Chenevert told attendees to post about their insurance concerns and to call their legislators to force reform.
