Texas Department of Insurance meetings in Austin, Corpus Christi postponed
The department’s decision follows weeks of debate between Coastal lawmakers and Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman
Corpus Christi Caller Times
By Rick Spruill
AUSTIN — The Texas Department of Insurance on Tuesday postponed meetings and a rule implementing a surcharge on insurance policies in Nueces and other coastal counties that make up the state’s windstorm pool.
A department official called state Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, early Tuesday to confirm the decisions.
Hunter said that the surcharge, allowed under state law according to what is known as the loss funding rule, would be applied to residential, private and commercial automobile policies that coastal residents purchase from private insurance carriers apart from their windstorm policies, which are underwritten by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
By law, the surcharge can go into effect only if the association is forced to issue Class 2 public bonds to pay claims after a storm, can be assessed only on policies within the catastrophe zone and can be assessed only as long as needed to help pay the debt.
The department’s decision follows weeks of debate between coastal lawmakers and Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman over the way the association calculates risk, raises revenue and assesses fees.
The meetings, scheduled Thursday in Austin and Friday in Corpus Christi, were set to discuss the loss funding rule and the appointment of an expert panel to advise the commissioner on meteorological and geological factors that determine storm damage levels.
The formal postponement notice cited “apparent confusion among some interested parties as to the nature and purpose of the public hearings” as the reason for the postponement. An alternate date for the meetings was not given.
Kitzman said Tuesday she could not comment specifically as to what the confusion was.
The Caller-Times has requested an interview with Kitzman to discuss the windstorm association, her background as a former insurance commissioner in South Carolina and her perspective on the politics behind windstorm policy issues. Her office has not confirmed a meeting.
Postponing the meetings does not mean the issue has been put to rest, said Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce CEO and President Foster Edwards.
The chamber will host a rally at 9:45 a.m. Friday outside City Hall to protest rate increases that Edwards said will have a chilling effect on the local economy.
“We need to keep up the momentum,” Edwards said in a statement.
Hunter on Tuesday afternoon reiterated in a letter signed by the Coastal Bend delegation of lawmakers and sent to the commissioner that the postponement is until the Legislature reconvenes in January.
“We want to make it clear that we do not support the loss funding rule and we do not support rate increases in the coastal region,” Hunter wrote in the letter. “All of these rules, orders and surcharges and increases should be dealt (with) by the Legislature in 2013.” Corpus Christi Caller Times
