CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Corpus Christi City Council plans to pass a resolution opposing TWIA's 2025 rate increase during its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday.
"Any sort of increase is going to be painful for, not only the residents, but also businesses to try and survive," said Dist. 4 Councilman Dan Suckley. "We're all dealing with inflationary pressures in addition to other costs associated with living on the coast."
The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) says that while the Atlantic basin is quiet for now, there's no guarantee it will stay that way.
That's why it's recommending a 10-percent rate increase, which would start in 2025.
"By law, every year TWIA is required to make a rate filing with the Texas Department of Insurance," TWIA senior manager Anna Stafford said. "With our rate filing process we're simply ensuring that, as a whole, all of the claims that we would receive from a projected storm event in a year, we have the ability to pay all of those claims when our policyholders need us most."
Suckley said that increase for the 14 Texas coastal counties is disproportionate to the rest of the state.
However, Stafford said that the increases are necessary to cover operational expenses, as well as expected losses if one of the projected 17-25 named storms makes landfall in the Coastal Bend.
"The rate adequacy analysis shows that TWIA's rates are inadequate by 38 percent for residential coverage and 45 percent for commercial coverage," she said.
Suckley, who also is a senior lending officer at American Bank, said a rate increase may not have much of an effect on residents getting the claim settlements they hope for after a storm.
"There were folks in Harvey and other previous storms that may not have gotten as much as they expected when they did file a claim," he said.
But it's for those homeowners anticipating settlements that would make them whole, and then found themselves disappointed that Stafford said rates need to be raised.
TWIA will meet in Galveston with its board of directors on Aug. 6 to make a decision.
Digital director Ana Tamez contributed to this story.