BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – In Louisiana, annual auto insurance premiums are the 8th highest in the country. A driving factor is the number of bodily injury claims, 2 1/2 times the nationwide average. At the capitol today, Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple said the solution has to be multifaceted.
“It is vitally important to the consumers of Louisiana that we do something to bring premium relief,” Temple said. “The one thing that we cannot do is nothing.”
Small commercial fleets that have to insure their trucks are also dealing with an availability problem where there is one or two companies statewide who will insure them. This low-competition marketplace means customers don’t have many options for better rates. A big problem with finding a solution is transparency.
“If the insurance companies are the ones making all the money, we need to know that,” Temple said. “If they’re not, we need to know who is making all that money, because as consumers insurance companies are paying billions of dollars and we deserve to know where that money is going.”
By state law juries aren’t allowed to see the actual cost of medical treatment versus what was charged to the insurance company. Temple says this needs to change so that you are not being gauged with inflated rates.
“When they’re paying billions of dollars in losses, well, there’s an industry around that,” Temple said. “So we’re dealing with some powerful forces but at the end of the day this is about premium relief to the consumer.”
Click here to report a typo. Please include the headline.
Click here to subscribe to our WAFB 9 News daily digest and breaking news alerts delivered straight to your email inbox.
Copyright 2024 WAFB. All rights reserved.
