Louisiana Insurance Customers Lose $133 million in Rebates

January 10, 2011

The Times-Picayune is reporting that property insurance policyholders in the state of Louisiana have missed their opportunity to collect roughly $133 million in rebates that had been available until the end of last year.

Accoding to Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, the money, which is part of the assessments paid by commercial and private home insurance customers for the state’s property insurer of last resort, has now been turned over to the state treasury. Donelon told the Times-Picayune, “The $133 million went down the drain.”

Since 2006, property insurance policyholders in Louisiana have paid special assessments to pay off bonds to maintain the solvency of the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. That company was hit by a flood of claims after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

Despite widespread notifications by his agency, Donelon said, roughly 69% of the available rebates went unclaimed from 2006. Consumers had a four-year period in which to claim rebates, totaling $193.4 million, either via

There are still about $229 million in rebates for assessments paid from 2007 through 2010, that policyholders are entitled to claim, Donelon said. For that period about $378 million has been collected, but the rebates for 2007 must be claimed by the end of this year, while the assessments for 2008, 2009, and 2010 expire at the end of 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively, unless the state legislature makes a change to those deadlines.