Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon is ordering insurance companies to pay the evacuation expenses of policyholders who fled their homes during Hurricane Ida, whether a mandatory evacuation order was issued or not. He doesn’t want them to “assert this provision in their policies tha’st there to protect them from abuse.”
Donelon says State Farm has said it would not cough up the expense money to evacuees who left their homes during Ida and incurred expenses when a civil authority had not issued an evacuation order. He says Hurricane Ida “was a clear and present danger.”
Commissioner Donelon says some companies have agreed to waive the mandatory evacuation order provision of their policies at the request of President Biden that came prior to Donelon’s order this week. Among them is USAA.
Donelon says All-State plans to comply with his order but expects State Farm to fight it with a legal challenge.
“State Farm can’t ignore his order, no insurance company can, I’m their regulator, but they can challenge it in court or in the Division of Administrative Law,” said Donelon.
Donelon says his order covers more than two dozen parishes in Louisiana.
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