Louisiana: The Best Defense is a Good Offense

December 20, 2004

Louisiana went on the offensive in 2004 with a campaign to tell insurers and other commercial operations that the state is “open for business.”

The Professional Insurance Agents of Louisiana (PIA Louisiana), the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Louisiana (IIABL), along with Insurance Commissioner J. Robert Wooley, launched an aggressive crusade in January to spread the news about insurance and tort reforms enacted by the Louisiana Legislature in 2003, de-signed both to lure insurers to the state and to encourage carriers already conducting business there to increase their writings in Louisiana.

Louisiana’s homeowners market was the focus of much of the public relations strategy. The market had been in dire straits for years, with the number of companies writing homeowners insurance in Louisiana dropping from over 80 in 1992 to around 20 in the fall of 2003, according to Wooley. Coastal areas were particularly hard hit, as only 12 insurers were willing to write insurance south of Interstate 10.

At the outset of the marketing initiative, Jody A. Miller, executive vice president of PIA Louisiana, remarked, “if we could just bring one company in that would write homeowners … we would consider this a success.”

Wooley estimated that since the campaign began, four new companies have received a certificate of authority (COA) to write homeowners insurance and are now doing so. Another eight companies have agreed to expand or resume their writings in Louisiana. Four more insurers have applied for a COA to write homeowners and another three are amending their COAs to include the line.

“That’s a total of 19,” Wooley said, “that’s a good start.” He added that this year the state “saw the first decrease in the total number of policies in our high-risk pool since 1994. We went from 135,000 policies to recently the number was about 128,000. It was a significant decrease.”

He noted that while the marketing campaign will continue in the coming year, the focus may shift from a broad, across-the-industry strategy to an emphasis on one-on-one meetings with regional insurers. The Louisiana team has already visited Ohio, where they talked with five regional companies, and are planning another trip to Michigan. “We’re starting to look at those places that have mid-sized companies that write in 10 or 15 states but don’t do anything on the coast,” Wooley said.

In addition, the PIA and the IIABL, which are still active in the process, are upgrading their marketing materials to include information about the commercial deregulation measure that was passed in 2004.

Commenting that Louisiana has “done a lot,” in terms of passing insurance reforms over the past couple of years, Wooley said the emphasis in 2005 would be more on marketing rather than legislation. Regarding “any other significant reform as far as our rates and forms are concerned, I think we’re going to wait,” Wooley said, adding, “we’re going to move a little slower from this point forward and go out and market the things we’ve already done.”

Topics Agencies Louisiana Homeowners

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