Naked City

At the Lege, all bills are born equal -- but some are a good deal more equal than others. Several legislators -- including Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth and Rep. Gene Seaman, R-Corpus Christi -- filed early bills addressing various aspects of the homeowners insurance crisis. But the headlines leapt last week when Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, and Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, filed a package of eight bills aimed at reining in a virtually unregulated home insurance market in the wake of skyrocketing rates and the ongoing dispute over the Farmers Insurance Co. plan to leave the Texas homeowners market. Fraser is chairman of the Senate's Business and Commerce Committee -- where in recent years, most insurance regulation bills went to die -- and has been mentioned as a possible chairman for the Senate Finance Committee under new Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. He has also been directly involved as a mediator in the ongoing dispute between the Insurance Commission and Farmers. So when Fraser talks insurance reform, the Capitol walls listen.

The proposed Fraser-Jackson legislation would mandate state rate approval, outlaw "cherry-picking" of profitable lines only, license mold inspectors and remediators, reduce "credit scoring" as a means of denying insurance, and prohibit denial of coverage because of a past water damage claim. Fraser said the "overriding goal" of the legislation is to "lower homeowners rates for consumers and restore the competition to the market." He also took an obligatory shot at trial attorneys, saying, "The mold issue, to a very large degree, is a manufactured crisis driven by unlicensed and unregulated public adjusters and mold remediators, coupled with a healthy dose of lawsuit abuse by plaintiffs' attorneys." He says he also plans to file "tort reform" legislation this session -- that line forms down the hall.