Louisiana still gives you a statutory penalty and your attorney fees when an insurer sits on a valid claim, and you can sue for it directly. But a 2024 rewrite repealed the tougher of the two bad-faith statutes and cut the maximum penalty from double your damages to half of them. Most of this law is really hurricane law — and the trap is time, because almost every policy cuts your deadline to 24 months from the date of the storm, not from the day you were refused.
Three listing slots on this page are available to attorneys licensed in Louisiana who handle disputes against insurers. Listings are paid advertising sold at a flat monthly rate. They are shown in the order they were purchased. We do not rank, score, endorse or recommend any attorney, and we have not assessed the quality of anyone’s work.
The state bar runs no statewide referral service. It points the public to local and parish bar associations, such as the Lafayette Bar Association, so there is no single number to ring. The LSBA main line is 800-421-5722, but it is not a referral helpline. The Louisiana Board of Legal Specialization certifies lawyers in appellate practice, bankruptcy, estate planning, family, health, labor, employment and tax law. There is no insurance or insurance-coverage specialty, so no Louisiana lawyer can hold a state board certification in this field.
Worth checking before you spend money on a lawyer. Two different measures exist, and they are not interchangeable — one is a real payment record, the other is a complaint count.
Health insurers selling on the federal marketplace must report how many claims they received and how many they refused. The figures are public and free to inspect.
The spread is the point. Two insurers selling comparable cover in the same state can refuse wildly different shares of what they are billed for. Look your own up before you assume your refusal was routine.
Source: CMS Transparency in Coverage public use files, plan year 2023 experience. Self-reported by insurers and not audited. Covers federal-marketplace plans only — not employer cover, and not state-run marketplaces. Post-service claims only.
There is no free public figure showing what share of home or auto claims any named insurer pays. Insurers do report it to regulators, but in most states that filing is confidential. Any table you see online quoting payout percentages for property insurers is either a paid commercial product or an estimate.
What is public is the complaint index — how many confirmed complaints a company generates against its share of the market. 1.00 is average. 3.00 means three times the complaints its size would predict.
Complaint indexes are published by state insurance departments and compiled by the NAIC. Figures move with both the company’s complaints and the wider market’s.
Start adjusting a property damage claim within 14 days of being notified (30 days for a declared catastrophe, extendable by the commissioner). Send the proof of loss form within 10 business days and say whether it is complete within another 10. Pay within 30 days of satisfactory proof of loss, and make a written settlement offer on property damage. For catastrophic losses the penalty deadline is 60 days on residential property and 90 days on other immovable property. A settlement once reduced to writing must be paid within 30 days.
Since 1 August 2025, La. R.S. 22:1892.3 makes a completed proof of loss statement form the only thing that counts as satisfactory proof of loss where the policy requires one. Photographs, contractor estimates and months of emails no longer start the penalty clock. If you never filled in and returned the form, the 30, 60 and 90-day deadlines that generate the penalty may never have begun to run at all.
A complaint to the Louisiana Department of Insurance costs nothing, creates a written record, and sometimes moves a stalled claim on its own. It is not a substitute for legal advice and it does not pause any deadline — but there is rarely a reason not to do it first.
This page is information, not legal advice. Insurance law differs by state and changes often. Nothing here creates a lawyer–client relationship, and no page can tell you whether your own claim is worth pursuing. If a deadline may be close, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state now rather than later — several of the deadlines described here start running on the date of the loss, not the date your claim was refused.
Attorney advertising. OverCompare is not a law firm and does not provide legal services. We do not recommend, endorse, rank or vouch for any attorney or law firm. Advertisements are paid placements, are marked as advertisements, and have no effect on our editorial rankings of insurers or of state law.
OverCompare is operated by Delixia Ltd, registered in England. Registered address: 14 Maltings Field, Castlethorpe, MK19 7EG.