ST. MARY PARISH — Weeks ahead of hurricane season, rising insurance costs are forcing some Louisiana families to confront financial strain before any storm makes landfall. In St. Mary Parish, Tammy Gros received a notice from her insurer that left her searching for options.
“They need to do something now and not wait till people are on the edge of losing their homes or whatever,” Gros said. “We got a letter in, I wanna say February saying that our insurance premiums would be going up,” she said.
Gros shared documentation showing her annual premium had jumped from $8,414 to $12,688—an increase of nearly 51%. “My husband is on Social Security, so we can’t really afford that,” she added.
Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple said surging costs like Gros’ are the result of cascading market pressures triggered by a series of historic storms.
“The current crisis that we’re in with regards to homeowners and commercial property really started back in 2020 with Hurricane Laura, then Delta, then Zeta, then Ida,” Temple said.
The storms caused billions in damage and led to the collapse or exit of more than a dozen insurance companies. Temple explains that With fewer companies writing policies in Louisiana, those that remain are taking on more risk—and charging more to cover it. That reduced competition leaves homeowners with fewer choices and insurers with more leverage to raise rates.
“I don’t know if these insurance companies care if you’re gonna lose your home because of the premiums,” Gros said.
She and her husband even began the process of selling their home—until a referral to a different agent helped turn things around. “My husband found insurance, luckily one of his family members he knew told him about. We called them and they helped us out, dropped our insurance premiums to half of what it was,” Gros said.
Temple says that kind of outcome—shopping around and switching insurers—is the kind of short-term relief some residents may still be able to find. “We’ve passed major legislation in property to help improve the market. It is starting to work. Doesn’t sound like it’s working for this particular lady, but: if you get your renewal and you don’t like it—and a lot of people don’t, because it’s usually expensive—get your agent to shop your business,” Temple said.
But Gros says shopping around doesn’t work for everyone. “I did shop around and we kept shopping around. It’s the same reply every time—'cause your roof’s over 10 years old we can’t insure you. Then finally we found someone who was compassionate enough to help us,” she said. “We’re just regular hard-working people trying to make it.”
Temple acknowledged that not every homeowner is seeing relief yet, but said the policies being pushed through the legislature are designed to improve conditions statewide. This session, he’s backing bills that aim to attract more insurers by giving companies more flexibility to adjust rates and drop high-risk policies. He also noted new legislation that would help the Department of Insurance track what companies are writing and where, improving market transparency.
“We’re actually in the process of collecting data right now,” Temple said. “We’ve got some legislation going through that helps us work with insurance companies to find out what they’re writing in and what they are not.”
Temple encourages policyholders to be proactive if they receive a premium they believe is inaccurate.
“If they don’t like the premium that they got, if they get a quote or if they bound insurance and they think that the number wasn’t right, call the department. They can file a complaint with us and we can sit down with them and we can contact the insurance company and get them to walk through the steps so that at least you may not like the number but at least you know it’s accurate.”
Temple said the House has passed more than a dozen insurance-related bills this session, many focused on auto reform but some on property insurance. “They made it over to the Senate—now they’re working through there,” he said.
He emphasized that change is underway, even if the results aren’t immediate. Noting that Widespread relief won’t be felt overnight, but he remains optimistic that policyholders will see premiums start to drop in the coming months.
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