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As part of a sweeping reform package aimed at bringing down Louisiana’s sky-high auto insurance rates, a bill moving through the Louisiana Legislature would limit legal claims by unauthorized immigrants involved in car accidents.
That bill—House Bill 436, sponsored by state Rep. Gabe Firment, R-Pollock—would prohibit awarding general damages as well as past and future lost wages to “unauthorized aliens.” As defined in the bill, those are individuals who are unlawfully present in the U.S. according to the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.
“House Bill 436 just says that if you’re in our country illegally and you’re in an auto accident, we’re not going to allow you to sue for mental anguish, anxiety, lost wages and those kinds of damages,” Firment, who chairs the House Insurance Committee, told the Press Club of Baton Rouge on Monday.
According to Firment, Louisianans file bodily injury claims at more than twice the national average and litigate disputed claims at more than four times the national average.
To put that in perspective, Louisiana, with its population of roughly 4.6 million, filed 66,000 bodily injury claims resulting from car accidents in 2021. New York, with its population of roughly 19.9 million, filed 60,000 such claims that same year.
“[HB436] is simply designed to lower claims, lower payouts and encourage legal immigration,” Firment said.
HB436 has passed through the House and has now been referred to the Senate Judiciary A Committee. The bill is just one of nearly 20 bills that make up what Firment called a “historic” legislative package aimed at transforming Louisiana’s auto insurance landscape.
Other notable bills in the package, all of which have also passed through the House, include:
- House Bill 431, which would bar drivers who are more than 51% at fault for an accident from recovering damages
- House Bill 434, which would expand Louisiana’s “No Pay, No Play” law to prohibit uninsured drivers from claiming damages for the first $100,000 in bodily injuries or property damages after an accident
- House Bill 435, which would cap general damages at $5 million per person per accident
- House Bill 439, which would cap attorney fees on small claims at 10%
- House Bill 450, which would repeal Louisiana’s “Housley Presumption,” which grants injured plaintiffs a presumption that their injuries were caused by their accidents if several conditions are met
While Firment acknowledged that no single bill would immediately lower rates, he believes the collective impact could be significant.
“If this package of bills becomes law, we will no longer be the most expensive state in the nation for [auto] insurance,” he said.
