Gov. Jeff Landry knows about political power. He cares about it. He has spent a good part of his first year-plus in office attempting to amass it, often successfully, including through legislation aimed at centralizing appointment authority in his office.
So it was quite a thing to watch Landry go to the mat during the current legislative session for a measure to give power to another elected official.
An official, it should be noted, who does not want it and is unlikely to use it.
That official would be Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple, who was notably absent from the governor’s mansion ceremony that Landry held to sign House Bill 148 by state Rep. Jeff Wiley, R-Maurepas, into law — even though the governor also signed a number of so-called “tort reform” measures on which he and Temple agree.
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Those other new laws, some of which change the rules for bodily injury lawsuits, are aimed at lowering auto insurance rates, and we’ll soon find out whether they will.
HB148, now officially Act 11, is another matter entirely. It gives the insurance commissioner broader authority to reject “excessive” rate increases, not just for auto insurance but also for homeowners’ policies that have become existentially unaffordable for many Louisianans.
Temple argues that he already can reject rates that provide excessive profits measured against risk exposure — or that are so low that they would leave companies unable to pay claims — and has used it. He and other critics say the new law allows for arbitrary rulings, invites political deal-making and makes Louisiana an unappealing place to do business.
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But separate and apart from whether the law will lead to lower rates — I’m not an expert but I have my doubts — its journey to passage opens a revealing window into current politics in Baton Rouge.
One takeaway is that in the very big tent that is the Republican Party, Landry is sometimes a philosophical outlier. Temple’s approach is more traditionally conservative, with its emphasis on giving industry what it wants in the hope that doing so will encourage a healthy and competitive free market.
Landry supports some measures to that effect, but is also close to plaintiff lawyers who are more often in line with Democrats on insurance-related issues, and has opposed some legislation that they don’t like.
Another is that, with some notable and very high-profile exceptions, Landry is able to bend more traditionally business-friendly lawmakers to his will. This bill drew concern not just from Temple but from the industry interests with whom Republicans generally ally, so much so that getting it through the process required some complicated maneuvering and much hands-on involvement by the governor. Yet in the end, he got what he wanted.
But the biggest takeaway, to me, is that Landry gets that this is something Louisiana voters are worried about, and he doesn’t want the blame for limited homeowners’ policy options and sky-high premiums.
He appears miffed that a pro-industry raft of packages that Temple pushed last year aimed at attracting more companies has not yet produced results. As Landry none-too-subtly put it at his bill signing, “they promised us we would see relief. They broke those promises.”
As Louisianans face staggering home insurance costs, no immediate relief in sight
Act 11 allows Landry to say that the high rates that are weighing on so many voters’ minds and wallets are someone else’s fault.
“Our Insurance Department needs the power and the tools to be successful in fighting for our citizens,” he said. “It is the Insurance Department’s job to protect you, our citizens, when those who we pay premiums to break their promises and are bad actors. We keep that promise today by granting the insurance department greater authority to hold down rates.”
To say that’s easier said than done is to way understate things. The truth is that, other than encouraging the construction of fortified roofs — a separate and welcome focus of both Temple and the Legislature — there’s not a lot that officials can do about the things that make southern Louisiana an unappealing place for insurers to write policies, from the erosion of the protective wetlands here to the growth of climate change-driven extreme weather events seemingly everywhere.
There are things a governor can do, from really prioritizing wetlands rebuilding and climate action to lobbying Congress for a public insurance option along the lines of federal flood insurance. But those are hard, controversial and don’t promise quick relief.
And why bother, when you’ve got the power to say it’s somebody else’s fault?
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.