Four years after emergency, Texas still No. 1 in homeowner insurance costs

Leader says elected insurance commissioner has no chance.

Four years after lawmakers reworked laws and predicted big drops in homeowners insurance rates, Texas still ranks as the nation's most expensive state to insure a home.

Yet the crisis that prompted the state to sue a major insurer, later leading Republican Gov. Rick Perry to declare a legislative emergency, has generated little afterburn in the 2007 legislative session, at least in proposals to drive down costs.
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Perry devoted eight words of his State of the State address in February to say that rates are down.

Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, a consumer group, conceded that home insurance rates and premiums have dropped since 2003, by 13 percent and 9 percent on average, according to the Texas Department of Insurance.

But Winslow suggested that homeowners are getting less coverage now and that insurance companies are reaping heftier profits.

Beaman Floyd, a lobbyist for an insurance industry group, credited the 2003 changes in the law with fostering a "normalizing" insurance market.


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