re: John Bel Edwards calls special session to address property insurance crisis

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Ricardo

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I am not an insurance expert, but $45 million doesn't seem like enough money to lure an insurer to take on the risk that is LA.

I think the state should be using that money to retrofit a lot of dwellings around the state. (Lifting some homes in flood prone areas, improving drainage, etc.)

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1.) Elevating houses will not eliminate the insurance issue. That will reduce flood insurance. The NFIP writes that which is in essence FEMA. They aren’t leaving. It’s the Homeowners/Hazard policywriters that are.

2.) $45 Million might elevate 200 homes (trust me on this). We have thousands that are in harm’s way that need this throughout La. The USACE signed off on two Chief’s reports to elevate several thousand structures in about a half dozen Southern Louisiana Parishes. Only the first one is funded. It’s for a quarter billion and they’re hoping for a few thousand houses.

The 2nd one isn’t funded and would do (much more of) the same…for $1.2 Billion.

2A.) $45 million would make no dent in our drainage issues as a State. It also-again-does not address the Homeowners issue. Those policies do not account for flood risk in their premiums. Drainage improvements would make hardly any difference.

We need two things:

1.) Protect existing Housing Stock and Homeowners - The Special Session can do that if successful.
2.) Protect future Housing Stock and Homeowners - The Special Session likely cannot do this. But higher standards, more restrictive land use planning and development requirements and reducing the ability to develop land and housing in ways and areas that make them more prone to wind, water and severe weather impacts must be on the table. All together.

Using words like restrictive or regulation is typically a dog whistle of sorts to rally a conservative or libertarian mindset to argue against this. But as I’ve said in this thread in a different way…

We all support capitalism. We see what the businesses in this market and-by extension-what this market is telling us. It’s too expensive to do business because the lax regulations expose insurers to too much risk. So the market sees businesses fleeing.

The private sector is talking to us. The public sector has stepped into this void or vacuum with La Citizens Property Insurance. But as the problem worsens, the public sector solution becomes more expensive.

We have to listen. We can’t just create business incentives for insurers. What’s driving them away is lax development standards that allow risky homes to be built in risky places. That is what we have to address. Locally and regionally and as a state.

That’s what this whole issue boils down to.

Always was a worthless POS.

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My insurance increased another $600 this year :(

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Dum Bel is a POS. Entergy is literally getting away with theft.

The plaintiff bar hates Donelon, fwiw. That’s when I realized we could do a lot worse.

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In other words, he's gonna be stuffing state money in people's pockets.

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In other words, he's going to force the people of North Louisiana to subsidize the insurance of the people of South Louisiana.

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Riverside

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Lax building codes has nothing to do with it.

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Hard to take anything else you say seriously when you lead with something that is so obviously and provably inaccurate it’s bordering on ignorant.

This is a good discussion. There’s no place for absolutes here other than to say that doing nothing is absolute insanity.

But to say our future housing stock being built up to a code that is more resilient to wind, rain, water or severe weather in an area less prone to disasters or severe weather has “nothing to do with…” the potential to reduce the risk of those properties to insure-and thereby reduces exposure and their insurability, to say nothing of the cost to the end consumer for this insurance-is so painfully, obliviously ignorant it’s hard not to call it out the way I am.

Seriously. Get your head out of the sand. That’s a dumb take.