For too long, Louisiana families have paid more for auto and home insurance than nearly anyone else in the country. One major reason for the inflated costs? A broken legal system that encourages too many lawsuits, fueled in part by the non-stop ads from “billboard attorneys.”
Now, there’s reason for hope that these costs will come down.
This year, important legislative changes were made to address the problem, which includes Louisiana accounting for 3.65% of the bodily injury claims filed in the U.S., twice the national average.
Legal System Abuse Awareness Campaign
The Insurance Information Institute helped shine a spotlight on this issue by socializing the impact of legal system abuse on Louisiana consumers with an awareness campaign. This included brick-and-mortar interstate billboards and similar digital displays at bus stops and other urban panels throughout Baton Rouge, focused on the need for lawmakers to take action this year to curb the high volume of frivolous lawsuits being filed in the Pelican State. This was a call to action against the blitz of billboard attorney advertising constantly seen by Louisianans.
And it worked. With the support of Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple, along with Triple-I and other reform advocates, several tort reform bills were passed by the Louisiana Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jeff Landry. These measures are aimed at curbing the negative impact of legal system abuse by protecting drivers and helping reduce auto insurance costs.
The reform measures include:
House Bill 431 stops drivers who are mostly at fault, 51% or more, from collecting injury payments.HB434 sets a $100,000 minimum for uninsured drivers to claim medical expenses. Before now, there was no limit.HB436 blocks general damage payouts to undocumented immigrants involved in car crashes.HB450 overturns a court rule that made it easier to claim injuries were caused by accidents without solid proof.
Overregulation Will Not Resolve State’s Risk Crisis
However, not all legislation signed into law by the governor supports positive insurance reform.
HB148 will take Louisiana in the wrong direction. This measure gives the insurance commissioner the power to deny auto and home insurance rate increases without relying on data and actuarial science.
It requires insurers to publicly disclose information about rate filings which is considered confidential. The new regulation opens the door to politics, rather than facts, dictating how much people pay for insurance, which will be a step backward for Louisiana’s marketplace.
We have seen how badly this process can go. In California, similar regulatory laws have caused disruption in the state’s insurance market. As a result, carriers pulled back and customers had fewer choices as well as higher prices. HB148 could have a similar negative market impact in Louisiana, with the potential for insurers to raise rates or decide to voluntarily withdraw from the market. It’s a bad piece of legislation which overshadows the expected positive impacts of tort reform.
With the end of the 2025 legislative session in sight, it’s still too early to gauge the full impact of these developments on Louisiana’s insurance market. While the passage of key tort reform bills marks important progress, the enactment of HB148 threatens to undercut these gains by failing to address the true driver of rising insurance premiums: Legal system abuse.
Sean Kevelighan is CEO of the Insurance Information Institute, a national nonprofit research and education organization.
