With just over 81,000 inhabitants, Lake Charles is home to just 0.02% of the U.S. population. But after an onslaught of natural disasters in the fall of 2020 and early 2021, the city's federal court accounts for one in five federal insurance lawsuits nationwide, according to a new analysis.
Southwest Louisiana is home to the largest volume of civil insurance lawsuits in the nation, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University found -- a fact that doesn't come as much of a surprise to legal professionals in the storm-battered city.
Max Guthrie, an attorney with Lee Hoffoss Injury Lawyers, said his firm was inundated with prospective clients looking to sue their insurance company, especially ahead of the recent deadline to file such cases for homeowners affected by Hurricane Laura.
'The caseload for all of the attorneys here shot up dramatically,' Guthrie said. 'A huge percentage of what we're doing are the hurricane cases.'
