While it may not be a high-level concern with a tax-centered session on the horizon, Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple and some legislators continue to call for a session focused on insurance—or at least an aggressive policy agenda for 2025.
House Civil Law Chair Nicholas Muscarello isn’t one of the lawmakers calling for an insurance-only special session. But his committee is among a group working toward crafting a package of bills that could be considered next year that are meant to help Louisiana get the cost of insurance under control.
“It’s not just the lawyers’ fault; it’s more than that,” says Muscarello, who is an attorney himself. “There are a lot of people that profit off of auto accidents. You’ve got health care, you’ve got ambulances, you name it. We’re going to go down the rabbit hole and try to figure out where the problem lies.”
Specifically, Muscarello is interested in why Louisiana’s previous attempts at tort reform have not had the desired effect on rates. He is endeavoring to compare the state’s efforts to what has been done in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee.
As lawmakers on other committees continue to meet, the plan is to convene a “committee of the whole” in December and come up with a package of bills that can be presented to the Legislature.
Muscarello says it would be premature to say publicly what he thinks is, or isn’t, driving the cost of insurance. But he did mention a few things that he has learned that he finds intriguing.
For example, lawmakers in 2020 spent a lot of time debating the state’s jury trial threshold, which was lowered from $50,000 to $10,000 in the tort reform package passed that year. But less than 1% of cases go to trial, he says, which suggests focusing on trials may be misguided.
He says he also has learned that auto repairs take longer on average in Louisiana than in other states, which can raise costs for vehicle owners and insurers.
“But at the end of the day, do we have the political will to make the changes that are necessary?” Muscarello asks. “And is the insurance industry willing to make changes? If we want to truly change insurance, everybody has to take a haircut.”
—They said it: “At best, this was a thoughtless oversight. At worst, it was a deliberate attempt to hide a controversial change from the citizens in general and faculty in specific.” —Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, on a recent meeting of the LSU Board of Supervisors, in the Illuminator.
