No Homeowners Insurance, No Business Whatsoever
State Rep. Ken Odinet revealed to the Louisiana Weekly that he is sponsoring a bill that will threaten insurance companies with losing all of a client’s insurance business, if they drop homeowners coverage.
“If that insurance company is going to write windstorm, and fire, and auto insurance,” the St. Bernard Representative said, “if they decide they are going to cancel your windstorm insurance, they would also be forced to eliminate writing auto insurance in the parish.”
He would change state law to provide serious disincentives to insurance companies dropping otherwise good customers because of hurricane fears. “They would be penalized for a period of five years if they determine that they’re not going to write the homeowners [insurance] in your state.”
The requirements are part of the “Policyholder’s Bill of Rights” that Odinet is introducing in this new legislative session. It provides for a variety of consumer rights.
“It’s a bill mainly for transparency. It’s to allow the homeowner to receive information from the insurance company, where in some cases have been denied. They make a request of the insurance company, under this bill. Within 15 days, they can be accommodated with copies of the survey, and also their policies,” he explained.
Besides access to claim-related documents and a prompt response from insurance companies to all inquiries, the legislation would provide a right to additional living expenses in the event of a loss under the homeowner’s policy-and it must be provided up to 24 months, “subject to other policy provisions.”
Lastly, the legislation would create an insurance consumer advocate in the Office of the Governor to advocate “on behalf of consumers before the Louisiana Insurance Rating Commission and the Commissioner of Insurance-and to report to the legislature on behalf of consumers on insurance matters.”
In a separate piece of legislation, in the event of an evacuation because of a Hurricane or other natural disaster, Odinet would extend the maximum health coverage under either spouses’ insurance policy to both, so that coverage cannot be denied or decreased because an illness occurred outside of the local network of doctors-during an evacuation.
By Christopher Tidmore, Political Columnist
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