All across Louisiana, families are feeling it: the sharp squeeze of insurance premiums rising faster than our paychecks, pricing people out of their homes and choking our economy. It’s no longer just a crisis for the coast. It’s hitting every parish, every income level, and every generation.
This is the biggest economic emergency in Louisiana right now. Not immigration. Not DEI. It’s insurance. And while politicians debate around the edges, the storm is already overhead.
Let’s be honest: our Republican leaders don’t have a plan. Their answer — again — is tort reform, for the umpteenth time. That’s not a solution. That’s a distraction. It hasn’t worked in the past, and it won’t now. Meanwhile, some in our own party offer tweaks that are important — defending your right to sue when insurance companies don’t pay, or exposing corporate profits while homeowners drown in bills. These are good and necessary fights. But we’re still missing something bigger: a clear, bold vision that could actually bring premiums down substantially — and fast.
That’s what we need right now.
It’s not enough to slow the bleeding. We have to stop it—and start reversing it.
Here’s the truth: insurance rates are skyrocketing because Louisiana is one of the riskiest states in America. Not because of the people. Because of where we live and what’s been done to it. For a hundred years, massive corporations — especially in oil, gas, and chemicals — have pulled our wealth out of the ground, offshored the profits, and left the rest of us to deal with the fallout. Coastal erosion, stronger hurricanes, more flooding, rising premiums — these are the long-term receipts of unchecked pollution and corporate greed.
And now regular people are being told to pay for it.
Enough.
We need an Insurance Relief Fund — a large-scale, state-level program that would directly lower premiums for working families. It would create a public reinsurance backstop to bring stability to our private market and attract new insurers. It would invest in home fortification and roof grants so families can qualify for discounts. It would restore our coastlines to reduce future damage and risk. But most importantly, it would provide direct premium relief — real, immediate help that doesn’t depend on insurance companies passing the savings along, but gets the job done ourselves.
To be able to accomplish this, we’ll need billions of dollars every year. And that funding must not come from ordinary families. It should come from the industries that helped create the problem in the first place. We need to pass legislation requiring polluting corporations — especially those who’ve made fortunes off Louisiana’s land and labor — to finally contribute to rebuilding what they helped break. A fair pollution fee or climate risk surcharge — a comparatively small cost for large industries that would barely dent their profits — could generate the revenue we need to drive premiums back down and restore public confidence.
This isn’t about punishment. It’s about fairness. If a multinational corporation helped create the conditions that made Louisiana nearly uninsurable, they should be part of the solution. If your company made billions extracting our resources — then shipped the profits out of state or overseas — while families here now pay thousands just to cover a roof, it’s time you helped bring those bills down.
We can no longer afford to be timid. Democrats in Louisiana don’t need to retreat or wait for Washington. We have to lead. We have to show voters — Black, white, rural, urban, left, right — that someone actually has a plan. One that’s honest about the scale of the problem and ambitious enough to solve it.
To my fellow Democrats: you’ve done important work trying to hold insurers accountable. Now let’s give people something bigger to believe in — a real strategy to fix this crisis and rebuild trust.
This isn’t radical. This is survival. It’s a blueprint for stability, fairness, and prosperity. It’s how we protect the Louisiana we love — from our neighborhoods to our natural heritage.
In 2027, we have a chance to make this fight the centerpiece of a new movement — one that finally puts the people of Louisiana first.
Let’s stop managing decline. Let’s start building something bold.