GNO, Inc. Sunday Night Highlight – Good News on Homeowners’ Insurance 🏡

For the better part of a decade, GNO, Inc. has partnered with state and federal officials to try to lower homeowners’ insurance rates. Our effort to lower rates even went international – GNO, Inc., Commissioner Temple, LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois, and others traveled to meet with Lloyd’s of London to discuss ways to reduce exposure and lower rates for homeowners.  This work, combined with a recovering reinsurance market, is paying off:

• Premium growth has nearly stopped, with annual increases essentially flat so far in 2026, down from 4.6% in 2025, 6.6% in 2024, and double digits the two years before that
• Fewer carriers are asking for more money: only four have filed for rate increases this year, down from 27 last year and 50 in 2024. Nine have filed for decreases
• 21 new carriers have been licensed to do business in Louisiana over the past three years, seven of them in 2026 alone. Homeowners who used to get two or three quotes can now get six or seven
• Commercial real estate rates are down about 30% on average, according to Ben Albright of the Independent Insurance Agents of Louisiana
• Fortified roofs have grown to roughly 14,000 statewide, among the fastest-growing counts in the country
• Citizens, the state’s insurer of last resort, has seen enrollment drop nearly 20% from its 2022 peak, down to roughly 114,000 policies as of June

Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple points to two main drivers of this improvement. First, Temple, GNO, Inc., and others successfully advocated for regulatory reform. Our reform package curbed excessive bad faith claims, eliminated rules that scared away insurers, and funded new incentives for fortified roofs. Second, the reinsurance market that backs most Louisiana carriers has recapitalized after several storm-free years, pushing global catastrophe reinsurance prices down 16% year over year as of June, the steepest annual drop in 25 years.

We are seeing the results on the ground: home sales in Greater New Orleans rose 10% in the first half of 2026 over the same period last year, a rebound brokers tie directly to easing insurance costs. Site selectors and company executives routinely cite insurance costs as a factor in location decisions, which makes a healthier market relevant well beyond individual homeowners.

The work continues. At the federal level, GNO, Inc. leads the Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance, a national coalition it founded in 2013 that now counts more than 900 member organizations, pushing for reform and reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program ahead of its September 30 deadline.

GNO, Inc. also built an online resource for homeowners trying to navigate the improving market: the Louisiana Insurance Discount Guide walks through wind mitigation credits, FORTIFIED roof discounts, the $10,000 tax credit, and grant programs available at the state, parish, and federal level, including up to $35,000 in city-funded roof grants for eligible New Orleans homeowners.

You can read more from Biz New Orleans here.
You can read more from the NOLA.com here.