Lawmakers ponder ‘tort reform’ rebrand to fix car insurance crisis in Louisiana • Louisiana Illuminator

As Louisiana lawmakers continue to study solutions for the state’s out-of-control car insurance premiums, they’re also considering some creative rebranding to try to generate new support to curtail personal injury lawsuits. 

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“It’s a three-alarm fire,” Louisiana House Speaker Pro Tempore Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, said during a House Insurance Committee hearing last week.

It was the latest among a series of meetings the Legislature has held to research the causes and potential solutions to the state’s property insurance crisis. Although the crisis involves both vehicle and homeowner insurance coverage, the hearing focused on the vehicle coverage rates in Louisiana, which are the third highest in the nation, according to Bankrate.  

Evidence and data presented so far to lawmakers points to a familiar legislative path to rein in what they and others see as a lucrative market for personal injury lawsuits in Louisiana. 

Similar efforts of the past have gone by the name “tort reform.” 

A tort is a wrongful act that causes someone to suffer a loss or a harm that often becomes the basis of a lawsuit. In general, tort reform legislation targets areas of civil law that some believe give plaintiffs an unfair advantage in lawsuits. 

When a researcher told members of the committee that tort reforms in Florida showed success in lowering insurance rates there, Johnson wondered aloud about whether a rebranding of “tort reform” might be in order for Louisiana. 

Some alternatives he and others have floated include “lawsuit abuse reform” or “truth in payments.” 

“I just want it to be honest labeling so people understand what it is,” Johnson, a lawyer who used to defend insurance companies, said in a post-meeting interview.

Previous tort reform efforts in Louisiana in 2020 underwent similar rebranding as “civil justice reform.”

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Regardless of what it’s called, tort reform doesn’t have the best track record in Louisiana. The 2020 legislation ushered in under former Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon failed to lower premiums as its supporters promised. 

In 2021, Louisiana drivers paid an average of $2,399 per year for full coverage car insurance. That number has jumped nearly 27% to an average of $3,036 per year in 2024 so far, according to market analysis from online agent Insurify, which publishes aggregate price data from over 100 insurance underwriters.     

Ben Riggs, executive director of Real Reform Louisiana, a group that has long opposed tort reform and argues for more accountability from insurance companies, criticized the talk of rebranding when asked about it in a phone interview. 

“Efforts to rebrand tort reform are a tacit admission that tort reform has failed to lower insurance rates in Louisiana and made it harder to hold bid insurers accountable,” Riggs said. “We do not need cosmetic changes. We need real insurance reforms that lower costs and strengthen consumer rights.”

Rep. Brian Glorioso, R-Slidell, said the 2020 tort reform legislation was overrated because it only applies to cases going to trial, which lawyers on both sides of the issue say is only a small percentage of cases. Glorioso, who was elected to the House last year, is a civil law attorney who has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in personal injury suits. 

“I never thought that bill was ever going to do anything,” he said.

Tort reform has been generally difficult to pass in a Legislature that, despite its pro-business Republican supermajority, also counts many civil litigators among its members. Some recent reform efforts in the spring stalled or were watered down under opposition from Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who received large campaign contributions from a cohort of wealthy Louisiana trial lawyers. Landry even vetoed one of the bills his party placed on his desk, replying with a lengthy rebuke of the bill and of the 2020 tort reform legislation. 

One reform lawmakers have previously tried and failed to enact was a bill to eliminate the Housley presumption, a standard of evidence the Louisiana Supreme Court created for auto accidents, medical malpractice and other injury lawsuits through a precedent-setting 1991 case, Housley v. Cerise. 

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In a nutshell, the Housley presumption says courts should assume a plaintiff’s injuries resulted from the accident in question if they were in good health beforehand. 

Some lawmakers have blamed Housley for excessive litigation in Louisiana and will likely move to address the case law again during the next legislative session. 

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Johnson said the presumption places the burden on the defendant — and their insurer — to try to prove they did not cause the plaintiff’s injury.

Glorioso said Johnson’s assessment is technically “not incorrect,” but he said Housley is not really as broad or impactful as it sounds. He said he has mostly seen it play a role in “bumper tap” cases involving small but quick payouts for minor injuries that doctors can only subjectively diagnose.

Eliminating or weakening the presumption would require plaintiffs to provide more objective evidence to show that their injuries actually stem from the accident for which they are suing, Glorioso said. 

However, one possible consequence of that is it could make it difficult for some legitimate accident victims to recover damages, he said.

“It’s always a balancing act where you’re trying to craft legislation that only goes against the bad actors and doesn’t affect people who are legitimately hurt,” Glorioso said.

Others believe lawmakers are on the wrong path with tort reform. Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, who also practices personal injury law, has repeatedly pointed to what he says is a lack of data showing a causal relationship between litigation and high car insurance rates.

Louisiana and many other states allow insurance companies to treat their rate algorithms as confidential proprietary information, which has made outside research challenging. Lawmakers also haven’t pressed insurers very much to disclose the variables that cause rates to fluctuate according to zip code.

“It would seem to me it’s impossible to address skyrocketing insurance rates without knowing how those rates are made,” Riggs said in a previous interview. 

Regardless of the merits of tort reform, Glorioso agreed the term is vague and carries baggage that lawmakers will probably try to rectify with some kind of rebranding during the next legislative session.

“We probably need better messaging so that the public understands how this affects their pocketbook,” he said

Lawmakers are expected to hold additional hearings on insurance matters in the coming months, and some have floated the idea of holding a special session on insurance before they convene for the 2025 regular session, which is set for April 14 through June 12.