Katrina-Related Lawsuits Filed
As expected, on August 28th, a tremendous number of people lined up in the Orleans Parish Civil District Courthouse to file lawsuits against their insurers. These filings came just before the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina expired. The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld efforts by the State of Louisiana to extend the deadline for filing these suits to two years after the storm. The number of lawsuits filed reflects the anxiety surrounding the deadline for policyholders to file lawsuits over their insurance settlements, as well as the importance of insurance pay-outs, as people fight for resources to rebuild their lives.
Insurers in Louisiana have paid out only $14.5 billion in Louisiana on non-flood insured property losses from Katrina. The total was expected to be over $20 billion. Louisiana law formally provided only a one year period to settle insurance claims before suit must be filed, the shortest statute of limitations of any Gulf Coast state. The existing Louisiana statute created a deadline of August 29, 2006, for Katrina insurance claims. Efforts by the Louisiana Department of Insurance and by the Legislature resulting in enactment of a revised statute extending that deadline by an additional year were upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court.
