Louisiana Voice

First, it was the issue of homeowner insurance deductibles. Time was, a homeowner could opt for deductibles of $500, $1,000, or just about any other amount s/he chose and that deductible would apply across the board for damages.

But then the insurance companies, already flush with cash, decided it would be better for their shareholders if the deductible for “named storms” would be a tad higher—like 10 percent of the home’s appraised value. Hence, a home appraised at $150,000 (about the median appraisal) would be smacked with a $15,000 deductible for damage from a “named storm.”

And, bear in mind, that is wind damage only. Flood damage is an entirely different issue and those premiums are projected to soar out of sight and out of affordability for many homeowners.

And where was our Department of Insurance when Allstate, State Farm, Progressive, et al, came up with this beautiful scheme?

Strangely silent.

And where was our Department of Insurance when Allstate and State Farm battled with stressed-out homeowners over whether damage was from rising or falling water, forcing many homeowners to either settle in for years-long battles or to settle for pennies on the dollar?

Strangely silent.

And in 2018, when the Louisiana Legislature approved a resolution directing the Department of Insurance to “establish a task force to conduct a comprehensive study of the commercial bail bond industry as a whole and make recommendations for proposed legislation and policy changes to more effectively serve the residents of Louisiana,” what was the result?

A public records request to the Department of Insurance earlier this month produced this response from John Tobler, deputy commissioner of Public Affairs:

“Two meetings were held by our staff, taskforce members, members of the public and other bail bond industry stakeholders on September 27, 2018 and November 15, 2018. Additionally, no recommendations were made by the group for forwarding to the Legislature.”

So, in response to a unanimous resolution from both the House and Senate, the Department of Insurance was, for all practical purposes, strangely silent.

So now, Baton Rouge Advocate Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Ballard informs us that Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon is “okay” with the fact that insurers may pop widows with higher rates for automobile insurance for no other reason than the fact they are now single.

“The truth is that single women pay higher premiums than married women because of actuarial data that’s used in every of the 50 states,” Ballard quotes Donelon as saying. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a teenager, a single woman or if you’re a widow or if you’re a divorcee.”

Then he added, “I don’t know if that is true on the male side.”

Where is an insurance commissioner who will fight for his constituency?

To read the full text of Ballard’s story, click HERE.

I have tried—without success—to understand how Mrs. Smith is somehow a greater risk on our streets and highways now that her husband is no longer with us. She is the same person she was a week before his death. Mrs. Jones, who just got a divorce, might be an angry driver, depending on the reasons for the marriage failure, but I just don’t buy the theory that she’s a greater menace as a driver now than she was last year. Lest I be accused of gender bias, My position for widowers and divorced males is the same.

At least three bills have been pre-filed for the upcoming legislative session that would address the problem of rate discrimination against widows and divorcees. It remains to be seen if any of those bills will make their way to the governor’s desk.

Donelon’s acquiescence to the dictates of the insurance industry is not difficult to understand. While he’s elected by voters to represent the interests of the citizens of Louisiana, his political campaigns have been financed in large part by contributions from INSURANCE INDUSTRY INTERESTS.

And therein lies the problem.

I’ve said it before and I would reiterate that no public regulator should be allowed to accept contributions from the industry he or she regulates.

The attorney general accepts the bulk of his contributions from attorneys. That applies not only to Jeff Landry, the current AG, but to a long string of predecessors, as well.

Then there are judges—from local municipal judges all the way up to the Louisiana Supreme Court—who receive the majority of their campaign contributions from—you guessed it—lawyers, lawyers of all stripes: corporate, tax, trial, defense and family counselors. The only exceptions are federal judges, who are appointed.

What’s the solution? Normally, one might suggest making judges, the attorney general and insurance commissioner appointive positions. But one must remember, we’re in Louisiana and that seems to necessarily mean that appointees will be campaign contributors as well. Their donations will instead be directed further up the food chain, i.e. the governor.

And governors traditionally pay scant attention to qualifications when doling out appointments to boards and commissions and even some agency and departmental heads.

So, why would attorneys general, judges, and insurance commissioners be any different?

Meanwhile, the citizens of Louisiana continue to be under-represented by the Louisiana Department of Insurance.

“I think probably there, I would imagine that there’s probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies.”

—Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, on why teachers should be armed, January 2017.

The town was divided as it had never been before in its history and it was all because of one player on the Allendale high school Fighting Scapegoats football team.

Ronald had gone out for the Scapegoats his freshman year even though he had never played the game, gone to practice or so much as cracked a playbook. He proclaimed it was unnecessary to subject himself to such pedestrian routine because he watched NFL football on Fox, so he knew “all there is to know about the game.”

Teachers and administrators said he should not be eligible to play because of his refusal to conform to the rules and regulations of the school. He declared that rules and regulations were for others, not him.

His arrogance appealed to about 40 percent of the student body—those who regularly were given detention, who painted graffiti on the walls, who slept in history class and who never opted for advanced courses in math and science, or who otherwise did not seem to fit in with the mainstream students.

When he defied authority, they cheered him on even as local businessmen and the newspaper’s sports editor opposed allowing Ronald to join the team when his only qualification was that his father was wealthy and gave him an allowance that exceeded the income of most of the town’s executives.

When the school’s conference demanded to see Ronald’s transcript to determine if he was even academically eligible to play football, he sued to block release of his grades.

“I’m a stable genius,” he boasted. “I know a lot of words.” He promised to release his transcript at some future, unspecified date. “I’m the most transparent student at Allendale,” he said as he launched his campaign to make the team.

He proceeded to plaster the school’s hallways with posters proclaiming his ability to “Make Allendale Great Again.” He passed out specially-made baseball caps with block letters “MAGA” emblazoned across the front. The caps were the school colors, of course: red with white lettering.

His campaign was a dog whistle to bigots at the school and in town as he vowed to rid the team of “undesirables”—the code word for Hispanics and the team’s Islamic kicker. The 40 percent of the student body cheered even louder as he advocated roughing up any student dissenters.

School administrators and the local citizenry became even more alarmed at the prospect of Ronald representing the school but Ronald went on Twitter to condemn all his critics as “losers—just like Allendale’s football program has been a loser.” He promised to turn things around the first season and to erase the athletic program’s deficit when he began attracting “record crowds.”

It soon became evident that no one could match his campaign rhetoric, financed as it was by his allowance and the groundswell of support from the raucous sector of the student body that drowned out protests from the more rational but silent majority. One by one, community leaders who initially opposed his acceptance became his advocates in the hopes they could be included in his inner circle and not incur his wrath later on.

The first to curry favor was the head football coach, who received a generous offer—with threatening overtones—to keep his job if Ronald was named quarterback and captain.

School administrators, in an effort to demonstrate the lack of mainstream support for Ronald, decided to put the question to a vote. The student body decisively defeated the proposal to allow Ronald to play. But the team, at the urging of the head coach, voted unanimously to accept him. So, despite a majority of votes against him (he claimed hundreds of non-students voted), he became the Allendale Fighting Scapegoats’ quarterback and captain.

The first few games were against weaker opponents, so-called rent-a-wins in football parlance. But even against inferior opponents, quarterback Ronald had far more interceptions than completed passes and the team managed to lose every game. Ronald, however, declared himself as the most valuable player in tweets after each loss.

His teammates resented his attitude of superiority as did the head coach. But oddly enough, large crowds turned out to watch this clown disguised as a football player. They had never seen a player this dirty who would flagrantly hit opposing players out of bounds and trip, body slam, and blindside his own teammates. For the first time in years, home games were sold out and the school’s booster club suddenly jumped on the Ronald bandwagon.

Loss after embarrassing loss ensued, but one would never know it from listening to Ronald who declared his performance in each loss as stellar and blamed his leaking offensive line for allowing sack after sack. The 40 percent likewise picked up on his proclamations and tweets and blamed the offensive line, the defense, even the cheerleaders and the band and on at least one occasion, the lunchroom supervisor.

As teammates began leaving the team in disgust, players Ronald had once hailed as “great players” were suddenly described as “quitters” and “losers.” Sometimes he tweeted insults about ex-teammates during games and even while in the huddle.

When the local sports editor, who had become a supporter, had the temerity to criticize his play, Ronald called him “the enemy of the people,” calling the story “fake news,” and suggested tightening libel laws in order to make easier to sue sports writers.

When the head cheerleader turned him down for a date, he tweeted that she “wasn’t his type” and that she had begged him for a date.

The more boasts Ronald made, the more people turned out for the games, curious to see what the outrageous quarterback would do next. Fumbles, interceptions and blown plays failed to curb his grandiose assertions of awe-inspiring performances. In fact, the worse his performance, the more frequent his tweets became and the more outlandish were his claims of superior dominance on the field.

Curious fans were pouring into the stadium, which was good for the program’s finances, but Ronald had insisted on several sets of new uniforms for the team in various color schemes, new lighting and artificial turf for the football field, a modernized weight room (which he never frequented), and an upgraded dressing room complete with tanning booth, all of which created ever-larger budget deficits.

All Ronald touted and the only thing his support base understood, however, was that the program had more income now that he was on the team. Never mind that there was an overall deficit, or that the team’s record was worse than it had been in years and that other teams literally laughed as they rolled over Allendale, which now had no offensive line to protect Ronald. He ridiculed his defense which he said was incapable of stopping opponents’ drives. He distrusted the team’s scouts, many of whom had quit or been fired—because of Ronald’s tantrums—so there was no way for Allendale to prepare game plans for opponents.

When the school came under investigation for his insistence on withholding funds from the decoration committee unless the student council president promised to dig up dirt on his rival for homecoming king, Ronald called the probe a “witch hunt” and “a hoax,” and blamed his fellow players and the sports editor—and the lunchroom supervisor. He claimed he “barely knew” the student council president and had only met him “once or twice.”

Meanwhile, the 40 percent never wavered in their fealty to Ronald and they were already talking excitedly about his return next year.