September 11, 2014 4:29 PM

The days of TWIA coverage may be numbered

Dewhurst has called for moving policies to commercial coverage; Insurance Council says “It’s not anything that’s going to happen overnight.”

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, which has spent multiple sessions in turmoil, may be ready for the endangered species list after this week’s Senate Business & Commerce Committee meeting.

Insurance Commissioner Julie Rathgeber assured the Senate panel, led by Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, TWIA was in a far more stable fiscal position than it had been since Hurricane Ike, which almost bankrupted the state-run agency. And John Polak, general manager of TWIA, assured lawmakers the agency was solvent, prepared for a catastrophic storm, if one were to occur this hurricane season.

But that’s not where lawmakers wanted to go. Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, wanted specifics that TWIA’s claims with the Brownsville Independent School District, which date back to 2008, might actually be settled next month. And Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, questioned Polak closely on the Brownsville case, forcing him to admit the agency had spent $1 million to defend the case.

Whitmire could barely conceal his anger that an employee fired from TWIA for racist emails was now working at the Texas Department of Insurance in its customer service division.

Rathgeber was at a loss for words, saying she couldn’t fire the employee in question because she had violated no policies while at the insurance department. Whitmire, waving the emails in question discovered by Brownsville ISD’s attorney Steve Mostyn during discovery, was not satisfied with Rathgeber’s answer.

Eltife did keep the hearing moving, but the coup de gras was Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s last-minute appearance at the hearing. Dewhurst, who refused to be deposed during the Brownsville ISD case, suggested it might be time to end TWIA, an insurer of last resort for a quarter of a million policyholders along the coast.

By Kimberly Reeves