DeRidder native and insurance executive Tim Temple who helped businesses recover from the BP Oil Spill, announces his candidacy for Insurance Commissioner. Temple who garnered 47 percent of the vote in his last run for the commissioner said so much has changed since the last election.
“Our auto rates are now the highest in the country, homeowner companies are going insolvent, and many are no longer writing. Those that are still writing homeowners are taking rate increases that we’ve not seen, in the likes that we haven’t seen in over 15 years,” said Temple.
Temple who serves as the President of Temptan, a family own business, and Chair of the Louisiana Committee 100 for Economic Development said he will bring more than 20 years of insurance experience to the office.
“And a true desire to work with the stakeholders to identify what are the issues, why are rates so high, why are companies going insolvent, why are they being forced to take a rate increase or not write in our state anymore,” Temple questioned.
Temple said if you want competition in the state you have to change it, so companies want to come to Louisiana to write policies. And he said lack of competition discourages industry and potential employees from relocating to Louisiana especially if they’ll face higher premiums.
“And by the way your auto insurance is going to double, and your homeowner’s insurance is going to triple. We can’t expect businesses to pick up that cost. So we need to start looking at how the prohibitive expense of insurance impacts economic development,” said Temple.
Temple said he wants to bring more transparency to the office, he said we only hear when there are rate increases for the homeowner insurer of last resort, Louisiana Citizens but never about increases for other companies.
Comments