BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Nearly 90,000 homeowners are left to find new insurance.
Lighthouse Excalibur, Maison and Southern Fidelity are canceling their policies in Louisiana.
“The destructive hurricane season of the past two years have created a turbulent homeowners market for insurers, with Louisiana policyholders domiciled in our state failed in the aftermath of Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida,” said Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon.
Donelon said companies are leaving the state because they can’t afford to pay claims after natural disasters.
“The magnitude of Ida’s claims was significantly higher than Lighthouse’s projection. Lighthouse received 16,000 claims. In early March, their projection for damages has increased from 200 million dollars to 356 million dollars,” he said.
Baton Rouge independent agent Aundrea Allen says all agents across Louisiana are struggling to find policyholders’ insurance before the cancellation.
“We had about 30 days or so to move about 600 different homeowner insurance policies,” said Allen.
She said the state gave very little notice and a tight deadline. On Thursday, Donelon extended some of the deadlines. Lighthouse and Maison will officially be canceled on June 30th. Southern Fidelity will be canceled on July 15th.
“They’re canceling policies with very little notice and we then don’t have very many carriers to move those policies to,” said Allen.
Donelon said homeowners can apply for last resort options, like the state-run program, Citizens. The program was created for those who could not obtain private insurance elsewhere.
“Citizens is fine, it will handle it, it will handle it,” he said. “And it will grow to 90 to 100 policies and start offering those policies this hurricane season to private companies wanting to do business in our state.”
All Lighthouse and Southern claims are being handled by the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty. Those who already made a payment should expect a refund after their cancellation date.
If you are insured under one of these companies the first thing to do now is contact an agent before your coverage is canceled.