As 2025 winds down, insurance agents across Louisiana say the state’s battered insurance market is easing back toward something workable. Homeowners, though, often tell a different story. Premiums still sting. Sometimes badly.
“It’s just ridiculous,” said Clay LeBrun, summing up what many policyholders still feel when renewal notices arrive. “The prices are high. You can’t even find it when you want it,” LeBrun said.
The stress traces back to August 2021, when Hurricane Ida tore through south Louisiana. After Ida, 12 insurers failed, and others pulled back from writing new wind and hail coverage. Capacity vanished fast. Prices jumped. Options dried up.
Agents like Dan Burghardt argue the picture has shifted. Slowly, yes. But meaningfully.
“Both availability and affordability have improved. It’s called softening,” Burghardt said. He describes the prior phase as a hard market, where carriers shrank capacity and avoided risk. Now, he says, markets are reopening, underwriting appetite is loosening, and insurers are accepting risks they previously ignored. It’s not a flood. More like a crack in the dam.
Commercial property owners appear to be first in line for relief. Burghardt says rate pressure has eased there more than anywhere else.
“If you own a commercial building, you should be seeing 10%, 15%, sometimes even more than that on your upcoming renewals,” he said. Not universal, but common enough to notice.
According to Burghardt, that improvement tends to cascade. Commercial lines stabilize, then personal lines start to follow. He says home and auto coverage are now showing early signs of the same shift. Nothing dramatic. Just movement in the right direction.
State policy played a role. The Louisiana Legislature passed legal changes designed to make the state more attractive to insurers.
Burghardt says companies that once sat out the market have returned. Some are trimming homeowner rates at renewal, modestly. Think 5% or 6%. Not headline material, but after years of annual increases, stabilization alone feels like progress.
Wind and hail coverage below I-10 and I-12 has also improved. Burghardt says every home and auto carrier his agency works with now includes wind coverage.
The closer you get to the coast, the harder it gets. Some homeowners still have to split coverage, placing basic property with a private insurer and wind with Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance . That workaround hasn’t disappeared.
One quiet factor helped this year. No major hurricane made landfall in Louisiana. Burghardt doesn’t dance around it.
Mitigation matters too. Louisiana’s roof fortification program has started to change how insurers view risk. Burghardt says companies pay attention when they see exposure drop, especially with fortified roofs.
Over time, though, more fortified homes could draw more insurers back into the state. That’s the bet.
For consumers shopping coverage, Burghardt stresses preparation. Insurers now scrutinize property condition closely. Roofs. Electrical systems. Plumbing. HVAC. If those lag, coverage gets restricted or priced out.
You shouldn’t have your insurance company tell you, you need a new roof or we’re going to exclude roof coverage. Maintenance isn’t optional anymore. It’s part of the quote conversation.
According to Beinsure analysts, Louisiana’s insurance market isn’t healed. It’s just no longer in free fall. For homeowners staring at high premiums, that distinction may feel thin. But for insurers, it’s the difference between retreat and return.
