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S u n d ay, J u n e 29, 2025
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Louisiana residents await relief on home insurance years into crisis, little progress evident in reducing rates
BY SAM KARLIN | Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Belinda Poche jokes about how her husband, Elvin, sometimes forgets what things they own and is constantly surprised by antiques in their Modeste home on June 10. The Ascension Parish Council unanimously passed a resolution last month allowing the parish government to look into creating a property buyout plan for Modeste residents. Many don’t want to leave.
COMMUNITY
CONCERNS
Property buyout plan in the works for Modeste, but many residents don’t want to leave BY CHRISTOPHER CARTWRIGHT
Staff writer
Roughly 10 minutes north of Donaldsonville lies the community of Modeste, a collection of ancient plantations and unassuming roads branching off La. 405. One of those roads is Wilma Lane, a street enclosed by thick vegetation. Most cars pass through the community without a second glance, or skip La. 405 entirely for the more direct La. 1. Farther down Wilma Lane — around a bend — stands a two-story house, its
yard framed by cane fields and the St. Philip Baptist Church cemetery. Under a haint blue porch ceiling, seven rocking chairs stand as sentinels before blueframed double doors. The house is chock-full of statues, lamps, paintings, record players, pottery, dinnerware, dolls, clocks and framed black-and-white photographs. It is the product of Belinda and Elvin Poche’s three decades of antique hunting at estate sales across the region, and it has been the couple’s “forever home” for 22 years.
They are some of the newer residents in the community, though. Many families in the historic, majority Black community trace their property lineage back to the Civil War. All of that may soon change. CF Industries and Clean Hydrogen Works hope to build large, multibillion-dollar ammonia plants on nearby land tracts; closer to Donaldsonville, Hyundai plans a nearly $6 billion steel mill touted by President Donald Trump and Gov. Jeff Landry.
ä See CONCERNS, page 8A
While Louisiana lawmakers debated auto insurance this spring during their legislative session, sky-high home insurance premiums continued to crush residents along the state’s coast. Homeowners insurance rates keep rising, forcing some residents out of their homes, while the state waits for the free market to look more favorably on Louisiana. So far, the approach has not led to lower rates for most homeowners in the state. Many saw their insurance premiums climb to unaffordable levels after a series of hurricanes in 2020 and 2021 upended the market. Home insurance rates rose by 16% in 2022 and by 14% in 2023, on average, according to data from the Louisiana Department of Insurance. A dozen insurers went belly up. Last year, homeowners insurance rates rose by 6.6%, on average. And so far this year, rates are up 1.2%. If the trend holds through the end of the year, it would be the smallest jump since 2018, according to state data. Not everyone is seeing relief. In May, an insurance group for teachers raised rates by an average of 14%, according to rate filing data. A month earlier, two insurers from another group raised rates by 12.5%. A handful of insurers cut rates by varying levels, from 2% to 11%. State lawmakers made a few attempts to scale back those increases by passing legislation this spring that strengthens incentives and grants for homeowners who put fortified roofs on their homes. The changes to the law come as
ä See INSURANCE, page 7A
Lawyer suing Big Oil is no tree hugger John Carmouche just won a $745M verdict against Chevron
against Chevron for damaging wetlands, is taking on Big Oil in Louisiana and winning. But he’s no tree hugger. Nor, he says, a headline-chasing trial lawyer. Through three governors’ adBY ALEX LUBBEN | Staff writer ministrations, he and his firm have navigated political headwinds John Carmouche isn’t who you to keep their lawsuits against oil companies alive. Carmouche has think he is. The Baton Rouge lawyer, who helped quash bills and candidajust won a $745 million verdict cies that would have threatened
WEATHER HIGH 90 LOW 75 PAGE 8B
his efforts. While his work seeks to make oil companies pay billions for damage they’ve done to the environment, he insists he wants the oil industry to thrive in Louisiana, as long as it doesn’t leave behind a mess. “I have a Democrat’s heart but I’m a Republican, because I understand business,” Carmouche
ä See CARMOUCHE, page 9A
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Classified ..................... 2F Living............................1D Nation-World................2A Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
John Carmouche, right, speaks on recent litigation alongside his father and colleague, Donald Carmouche, on May 22 at their firm, Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello, in Baton Rouge. STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
100TH yEAR, NO. 364