Texas lawmakers aim to wrangle home insurance premiums

Many North Texans worry the state is becoming unaffordable. With each rise in home insurance premiums, some wonder whether they'll be able to stay in their home for the foreseeable future. Many have contacted 온라인카지노사이트 5 about their concerns. Others have urged state lawmakers to get a handle on rising prices.

While home insurance is bought for individual properties, it's a regional market. More people living in dangerous and disaster-prone areas drive up prices. The cost of labor and materials to repair and rebuild damaged homes increased with inflation. It all came together in a perfect storm after 2020.

This spring, state lawmakers will debate whether to require insurance companies to get approval from the Texas Department of Insurance before they raise insurance plan premiums by 10% or more. It's called "prior approval." It's a system used to have roughly twenty years ago before the state moved to a "file and use" system. Current law allows insurance companies to raise premiums unless regulators come back later and deem the increase unnecessary.

The change would be through Senate Bill 1643 by Senator Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown. It's already passed the Texas Senate. The next step is a hearing in the Texas House.

The 온라인카지노사이트 5 investigative team has tracked the number of double-digit increases for home insurance premiums. So far in 2025, insurance companies filed 108 premium plan increases of 10% or more. According to state data, that's fewer than in the past few years. In 2024, companies filed 293 increases with the Texas Department of Insurance. In 2023, they filed 362.

The increases over the years, however, have brought scrutiny from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who worry company profits are leading to a housing crunch for their constituents.

Schwertner, the author of the bill, argued on the Senate floor that companies were "implementing significant or even extreme rate increases without proper oversight.”

“They can raise their rates 20, even 30% and use them until TDI says 'Wait a minute, time out, that’s too high,'" Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said during the debate on the issue in the Texas Senate.

"They can senator, there is no upper limit to a rate increase in Texas," responded Sen. Schwertner, the bill's author. His proposal passed the Texas Senate 27 to 3.

“Rate payers across this state are hurting and we need to do more," said Gutierrez.

Companies and industry groups argue it's not profits driving the increase in premiums, but those larger market forces: more expensive homes in more disaster-prone areas.

Beaman Floyd from the Texas Coalition for Affordable Insurance Solutions represents some of the largest companies in the state: State Farm, Nationwide, Allstate, Farmers, and others. He worries that adding another bureaucratic step in business decisions may drive some companies out of the market, giving buyers fewer options and increasing the cost for those remaining.

“We see it right now, real time, in California, where they have this 'prior approval' system and now they have a tremendous market dislocation. A lot of big companies pulled out of the marketplace altogether because they’re being told, by law, that they can’t make money there," said Floyd.

A big change in state regulations could shock the market.

“You can get long delays (with prior approval) that can actually make a rate obsolete, where a company can say we’re having to charge last year's rate, it’s more expensive this year. We’re in real trouble here and we’re just going to have to start canceling policies," said Floyd.

Plus, Floyd adds, the insurance marketplace appears to be stabilizing after the inflation-induced shock of 2023. That's why, he says, fewer companies have filed 10% increases this year with state regulators.

“We seem to be moving towards a point where we are getting more stable," he said.

Other critics argue SB 1643 won't solve the problem completely because insurance companies can still raise premiums by 8% or 9% -- 10%, however, appears to be the line for many lawmakers. The next step for the bill is a hearing in the Texas House.

A separate bill by Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer sets the 'prior approval' rate at 5%, but that proposal doesn't appear to be getting bipartisan support.

A deadline for Senate bills to pass House committees is roughly two weeks away. Their final day in the legislative session is June 2nd.

Realistically, experts say, anything lawmakers do will only slow the growth. The larger forces at play make it very unlikely that prices will drop drastically.

Since 1980, there have been $179 billion in weather events in Texas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Data from the Texas Senate and the Office of the Comptroller shows that homeowner premiums are up 50% since 2015. Data 온라인카지노사이트 5 Investigates obtained also showed that the number of double-digit rate increases requested in Texas has increased by 560% since 2014.