What Should Mississippi Do About the Wind Pool Insurance Problem?

As many of you know, we are experiencing a historic crisis in regards to obtaining affordable insurance premiums for commercial and residential property. As you may also know, Jay Foster is a member of the Coast Business Leader’s Association. At a recent meeting, we discussed the problem regarding the lack of insurance for residential and commercial policies and the fact that when policy holders policies renew they may be canceled or find that their rates literally quadruple. The members present unanimously agreed to get behind a proposal to lower the Wind Pool Insurance Premiums.

Jay Foster recently spoke with the Biloxi City Council, the Harrison County Board of Supervisors, the Biloxi Businessmen’s Club, and the Pascagoula City Council. The Harrison County Board of Supervisors and the Biloxi Businessmen’s Club will pass a resolution in support of what we want to do. We hope that every government along the Coast will do the same.

As you may know, this is a critical issue for virtually every citizen of the Gulf Coast and ultimately, the State of Mississippi. Most companies refuses to write any more policies for the entire Gulf Coast. This is seriously stifling growth and it is already past the critical stage as several commercial projects have been shut down due to the unavailability of affordable insurance and little home sales are happening.

However, one solution is taking the money that Mississippi will receive from the Oil & Gas Revenue Bill passed last year by the United States Congress which provides that Mississippi gets a share of the oil and gas revenues from federal waters. We can place this money in the Wind Pool to reduce rates. Obviously, this does several things: (a) eliminates the Gulf Coast Delegation asking for an appropriation each year from the State; (b) allows us to “pay our own way” so to speak in regards to insurance; (c) reduces insurance rates for every Mississippi Citizen; and, (c) fills a serious, long-term gap in private insurers failing to write policies for the Gulf Coast. Of course, if Congressman Gene Taylor's bill passes the United States Senate, that will also alleviate the insurance premium problem.

You may remember that insurers recently announced they are refusing to write new policies in California. Allstate has also refused to write new policies in eight counties in New York and pulled out of New Jersey as well. Obviously, California and New York is much bigger than Mississippi’s market so if they are pulling out of there, we doubt seriously that they come back to the Gulf Coast any time soon.

We wanted to amend House Bill 1500. Unfortunately, the insurance companies helped kill any chance we had to amend it. This bill should have been amended to allow the Gulf Coast to obtain these funds from the Oil and Gas Revenues produced in federal waters.

We just cannot emphasize enough how important this amendment is to the future of the Gulf South. We realize that we may not be telling you anything that you already do not know but we are seriously in crisis mode and need this amendment passed.

It is vital that you contact your state legislators right away and let them know you want toi amend any bill to include language taking part of the funds received by the State from the Oil & Gas Bill revenues and placing those funds in the Wind Pool. Please note that several of them are already hard at work on this issue and doing a fantastic job but it certainly never hurts to let them know you support them in their efforts to help us get the insurance rates reduced. Please also note that this is not a comprehensive list but you can visit http://www.ls.state.ms.us/hr_membs.htm to look up your State Representative’s information. The information we have is below:

Representative Daniel Guice (dguice@mail.house.state.ms.us)

(228) 872-2455 (H)

(228) 896-3553 (W)

Representative Francis Fredericks

(228) 864-9319 (H)

Representative Carmen Wells-Smith

(228) 769-0538 (H)

(228) 218-0649 (W)

Representative Diane Peranich (dperanich@mail.house.state.ms.us)

(228) 255-7020 (H)

Representative Michael Janus (mjanus@mail.house.state.ms.us)

(228) 388-5686 (H)

(228) 594-6800 (W)

Representative J.P. Compretta (jcompretta@mail.house.state.ms.us)

(228) 467-7618 (H)

(228) 467-1010 (W)

Representative Hank Zuber (hzuber@mail.house.state.ms.us)

(228) 875-4866 (H)

(228) 875-1097 (W)

Representative Jim Simpson (jsimpson@mail.house.state.ms.us)