It’s been a year since the legislature passed a sweeping series of laws that took on the rising cost of property insurance.
Are homeowners feeling the effects of it yet?
Ben Albright, the president of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Louisiana, says it might be a little while longer before property insurance premiums turn the corner and start going down.
“It’s important to note that a lot of those reforms didn’t go into effect until the beginning of this year,” Albright points out, “and some of them frankly still have not gone into effect.”
Albright says while premiums have not started coming down quite yet, the increases are slowing down.
“I’m not ready to say that your next homeowner’s renewal is going to be a decrease, but we are seeing at least the increases start to slow,” says Albright. “A lot of renewals are coming in kind of flat — you know, the same as it was last year — or a very marginal increase.”
Albright says the new laws have led to more companies coming into Louisiana, and that will be a major driver in premiums going down.
“We’ve also seen a couple of new companies come into the market; and obviously, competition like that is going to be what drives down prices,” Albright says. “The second wave of decreases is those companies won’t want to lose all of their policies to these new market entrants. And that’s where they’ll start to cut their rates.”
