Insurance Companies Would Set Their Own Rates Under Bill Approved by Louisiana House

The Louisiana House approved a bill Thursday that would let insurance firms set their own rates without approval from the state’s insurance commissioner -- one of several controversial insurance proposals on deck as lawmakers try to mend the state’s fractured marketplace.

House Bill 489 has the support of the powerful insurance lobby, which argues that paring back the commissioner’s rate-setting abilities will grow competition and create a healthier market in which homeowners will have more options.
The bill notched a 56-23 majority vote in the House and moves now to the Senate.

Calls for more competition have animated much of the debate in the Republican-controlled Legislature about how to fix the insurance market, which sank into crisis following a series of punishing storms in two recent hurricane seasons. Bills aimed at wooing more insurers to the state have sailed through the Legislature in recent weeks.