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Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance explained
How Louisiana Citizens covers homes private insurers decline, why it costs more by design, who pays a deficit, and how to move back to a private policy.
Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is the state-created insurer that writes homeowners, dwelling fire, wind-only and mobile home policies for owners who cannot buy coverage from a private company. It runs two programs, a FAIR Plan for most of the state and a Coastal Plan for designated coastal areas, and its rates are not meant to compete with the private market. You can count on getting a policy if the property is insurable. Do not count on it being cheap, and plan to leave it when a private offer appears.
What Louisiana Citizens is
The Legislature created Citizens in 2003 and it began operating the residual market on January 1, 2004. It combined two older programs: the FAIR Plan, set up by Act 424 of 1992, and the coastal plan. It is a nonprofit corporation, not a commercial insurer, and it sells only through licensed agents. Our Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation profile has the company details and contact numbers.
Which plan you land in depends on your address. Citizens' 2026 rate filing lists Coastal Plan business in Cameron, Iberia, Jefferson, Lafourche, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Mary, Terrebonne and Vermilion parishes; the rest of the book is FAIR Plan. Your agent can tell you which one applies to your house. Citizens does not publish a policy count on its website as of October 2026, so any figure you see for its size elsewhere should be checked against a dated source.
If you have read about Florida's version, the two are separate organizations with different eligibility tests. See FAIR plans explained: the insurer of last resort for homes for how these plans work in general.
Who can get a policy
Under Citizens' plan of operation, anyone with an insurable interest in insurable property may apply through an agent. Citizens says it serves owners who are in good faith entitled to coverage but unable to get it in the voluntary market, so expect your agent to have shopped the risk before sending it to Citizens.
The underwriting review looks at the property, not the neighborhood. The plan lists these reasonable standards: whether the amount of insurance fits the home's replacement or actual cash value; its physical condition, including construction, heating, wiring and evidence of earlier fires or damage; its use, such as vacancy or stored rubbish; and other conditions that violate law or public policy. Two protections matter to applicants. A neighborhood or environmental hazard beyond your control is not an acceptable reason to decline, and credit scoring cannot be the sole reason.
Policies run up to a year and renew annually as long as the property remains insurable (plan of operation, read October 2026). After the first 60 days, Citizens can cancel only for listed reasons, which include nonpayment of premium or assessments, material misrepresentation and changes that make the property uninsurable.
What the policy covers and what it does not
Citizens' forms follow its filed underwriting manual, and the plan says coverage types and limits are set there. Ask your agent which form you have, whether the dwelling settles at replacement cost or actual cash value, and what the limits are. Read the declarations page when it arrives instead of assuming it matches the private policy you had. Our how to read your homeowners policy, section by section guide shows where to look.
Three points trip people up.
- Flood is not covered. A Citizens policy excludes flood and storm surge like any homeowners policy. Buy NFIP or private flood coverage separately, and buy it early, because NFIP has a 30-day waiting period in most cases (NFIP flood insurance explained).
- Wind-only policies are a different product. If you hold a wind-only policy and a separate policy for everything else, each has its own deductible and claim process. See windstorm exclusions and wind-only policies.
- The hurricane deductible can be large. Citizens' discount disclosure lists a 5% option that lowers the premium. Say your dwelling limit is $250,000 and your policy applies 5% of that limit: you absorb $12,500 of a storm loss before Citizens pays. Check the deductible form, and run the numbers in the hurricane and percentage deductible calculator.
Why it costs more, and what the law says
The plan of operation says plainly that Citizens' rates are not intended to be competitive with the voluntary market. The rate rule is in La. R.S. 22:2303 (statute text). Citizens' board sets rates each year, the Department of Insurance approves them, and the baseline rule is that they exceed by at least 10% the higher of two benchmarks: the actuarially justified rate, or the highest rate charged among larger insurers in the parish. Citizens must also add a charge equal to the state premium tax, which it keeps.
That rule was loosened in 2024. As amended by Act 757 of 2024, effective January 1, 2025, the statute says that until December 31, 2027, in any market the insurance commissioner finds noncompetitive, Citizens' rates may not exceed those benchmarks, which removes the 10% add-on there. Insurance Business reported in July 2024 that an LDI official described the change as a "fill-the-gap" measure while that year's reforms took effect. Whether the add-on applies to your parish depends on the commissioner's findings, so ask your agent rather than assuming. In either case, the filed rates still reflect a catastrophe load, and Citizens remains a place most owners will pay more than they would in a healthy private market.
Rates change every year. For policies effective January 1, 2026, the approved change was +3.4% for the FAIR Plan, -2.5% for the Coastal Plan and +3.1% statewide (Citizens rate notice). The filing's exhibits show wide differences by parish, so your own renewal can look different. The plan also provides for a non-refundable application fee and a servicing fee for installment plans, so ask for the total, not just the quoted premium.
Who pays when Citizens runs a deficit
Citizens does not carry unlimited money. Its backstop is a layered assessment system, laid out in sections 16 and 17 of the plan of operation:
| Step | Who pays | How it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Citizens' own profits, reserves and reinsurance | No assessment until profits and excess reserves are exhausted |
| 2 | Citizens policyholders | A Market Equalization Charge, a uniform percentage shown on the declarations page and treated as premium for nonpayment |
| 3 | Admitted insurers in Louisiana | A regular assessment, which insurers may recoup from their own policyholders through a surcharge |
| 4 | Property policyholders statewide, except NFIP flood policies | An emergency assessment, used when a deficit exceeds 10% of the prior year's statewide premium for the covered lines |
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Citizens issued $978.2 million of assessment revenue bonds in 2006, repaid through an emergency assessment on Louisiana property policies, most recently 1.36%. The board voted on January 9, 2025 to end that charge effective April 1, 2025, and Citizens' 2025 financial report shows the bonds on track to be fully repaid in June 2026 (Citizens 2025 management discussion). The practical point: even a homeowner who has never touched Citizens can end up helping to fund it.
For 2025-26 Citizens bought $1.86 billion of storm reinsurance above a $238.6 million retention, which it described as protection against a 1-in-122-year event, and ended 2025 with $543.2 million of policyholder surplus. That is Citizens' own reporting; it says what the plan has set aside, not that a deficit cannot happen.
You cannot buy it on the eve of a storm
The plan allows Citizens to suspend binding new coverage or coverage increases when any part of the state is threatened by a tropical depression or hurricane. Private insurers and wind pools do the same. If your policy is lapsing or your lender needs proof of coverage, start the application well before June, not after a storm is named.
Getting out of Citizens
Citizens is built to be temporary. Four things move owners back to the private market.
- Shop at every renewal. Ask your agent to requote the risk 60 to 90 days before expiry. The Louisiana market has more options than it did in 2022; a July 2026 Triple-I brief counted 17 new homeowners insurers entering the state since 2024 (Reinsurance News).
- Fix what made you uninsurable. A new roof, updated wiring or a corrected vacancy problem can change an underwriter's answer. A FORTIFIED roof or home can earn credits at Citizens and at private insurers (The FORTIFIED Home standard and insurance discounts).
- Watch for a takeout offer. In depopulation rounds, private insurers assume selected Citizens policies. The assuming insurer must be admitted in Louisiana and rated at least B+ by AM Best or an equivalent. Round 24 has a December 1, 2026 assumption date and Round 25 an April 1, 2027 date. Details are in depopulation and takeout offers from state insurers of last resort.
- Use the opt-out if the offer is worse. Under Citizens' Round 25 process, a policyholder can opt out of an assumption and stay with Citizens through June 30, 2027, roughly 90 days after the policy is assumed. Compare the coverage worksheet Citizens posts before the transfer.
If you were nonrenewed and are weighing Citizens against other options, the nonrenewal action plan lays out the order of steps, and louisiana's home insurance market after the hurricanes covers the wider state market.
The case for and against an expensive last resort
Supporters of pricing Citizens above the market say it keeps the plan from pulling customers away from private insurers and keeps its losses from landing on taxpayers. Critics respond that it charges the owners with the fewest alternatives the highest prices, that its assessments spread coastal storm costs to every Louisiana policyholder, and that high residual-market prices on top of an already costly state strain household budgets. The 2024 amendment suggests that lawmakers saw merit in the second view during a hard market. Which side is right is a policy question; your decision is about this renewal.
Key takeaways
- Louisiana Citizens insures insurable property that private companies will not, through a FAIR Plan and a Coastal Plan, and it sells only through agents.
- It cannot decline you for a neighborhood or environmental hazard you do not control, but its rates are meant not to compete with the private market, and a 2024 law changed how the statutory rate add-on applies.
- Citizens policyholders can pay a Market Equalization Charge after a deficit, and most Louisiana property policyholders can face an emergency assessment; the post-Katrina one ended April 1, 2025.
- Citizens excludes flood, and it can stop binding new coverage when a tropical system threatens the state.
- Treat it as temporary: requote at each renewal, fix underwriting problems, and read any takeout offer before the opt-out window closes.