Louisiana Citizens Shedding More Homeowners Policies

Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which insures homes and commercial properties shunned by private companies, continues to shed policies.

The company’s chief executive officer, John Wortman, said he hopes the company will be down to 120,000 policyholders by the end of 2010.

Citizens had 167,000 policies in 2007 and cut the number to 149,000 by the end of 2008. That number fell to about 131,000 last year, Wortman said after a meeting of Citizens’ board.

The reduction has been aided by state grants to entice private insurers to take over the policies from the state’s insurer of last resort. Some private insurers that didn’t take part in the incentive program have also assumed Citizens’ policies.

Wortman said moving Citizens policies to standard insurers has been slow, partially because many of the companies that took over the policies were fairly new to Louisiana and are now digesting the new business, he said.

Also, under state law, the insurance agents that sold the Citizens policies have to give their permission for the private insurers to take on the policies.

A lot of agents say they already have as many companies as they need and don’t want to add another company just to take over Citizens policies, Wortman said.

Topics Louisiana Homeowners