Bill targets Texas Windstorm Association Insurance group formed after Celia

 A Central Texas senator filed a bill Thursday that would kill the Texas Windstorm Association, the insurer of last resort for homeowners in hurricane-prone areas.

Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, entered Senate Bill 44 to abolish the association which he said contains inherent funding problems that cannot be solved. Instead, his bill would require private insurance companies operating in Texas to offer insurance, including windstorm and hail policies, along the coast.

The state allows the windstorm association to operate differently than every other private insurer in that it doesn't have to be actuarially sound, Fraser said Thursday in a news release.

"By doing so, the state and noncoastal property owners are subsidizing low insurance rates for property owners along the coast," he said. "I don't think that process is fair."

The windstorm association was created in 1971 as the Texas Catastrophe Property Insurance Association after Hurricane Celia, providing basic wind and hail insurance coverage for Gulf Coast property owners who might otherwise be left uninsured, according to the association's website.

Fraser's bill aims to dissolve the it in an unspecified amount of time.

The bill could be made an amendment to the windstorm insurance bill passed Wednesday in the Texas House and could be considered as early as next week during the Legislature's special session, which runs through June 29, said Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi.

"It's a novel idea; it promotes competition in the private market," Hunter said.

"We just need to see if we can get affordable and better rates with this sort of proposal."

Hunter said he believes private markets are better than government markets.

"Am I for it or against it? It's too early to tell. But it's definitely something we need to take a look at," he said.

Rep. Connie Scott, R-Robstown, said she hasn't seen the bill but hopes recent changes to the windstorm association approved by the House will make the agency run more efficiently. Either way, the most important thing is making sure coastal property owners have affordable insurance available, she said.

"If it goes private and we can't find insurance companies to write on the coast, we've still got to find a way to provide insurance," she said. "Coastal Bend residents need an insurance of last resort."

Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said he wants to know how it will affect residents of the Coastal Bend before deciding on the bill.

"We'll wait and see and try to find out what the pros and cons are in terms of what it will do for our coastal residents in case of a hurricane."