Louisiana will likely become the second state to join a lawsuitfiled in federal court in Mississippi challenging the floodinsurance premium rate hikes that went into effect Oct. 1.

Florida announced Friday that it is joining the lawsuit.

A spokesman for the Louisiana Insurance Department has confirmedcomments made last week by Commissioner Tom Donelon that Louisianaplans to become more active in nationwide efforts to get the ratehikes delayed for perhaps two years, until an affordability studythat will lay out the impact of the new rates is completed.

In earlier comments, Donelon said that, “We are going to filesuit.” He added that the state has retained lawyers who worked forGNO, (Greater New Orleans), a regional development organization, todetermine the best path toward contesting the rates, whichrepresent exponential increases in premiums in some cases.

“The question now being decided by the lawyers we have hired iswhether we file in the pending Mississippi action or a separateaction in Louisiana,” Donelon.

Other sources familiar with the debate indicate that Donelon andthe Louisiana attorney general, Buddy Caldwell, are leaning tofiling an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit filed Sept. 26 byMike Chaney, the Mississippi insurance commissioner, in federalcourt in Gulfport. A hearing on that lawsuit is scheduled for Oct.28.

An amended complaint was filed Oct. 7. It said the purpose ofthe bill, the Biggert-Waters Act, was to make the National FloodInsurance Program solvent. It was enacted in July 2012.

“What the legislation significantly did not address is theeffects of the changes on policyholders and the affordability offlood insurance policies for those that truly cannot afford theincreases,” the complaint said. The rate increases went into effectOct. 1.

The complaint says that affordability and other studies weremandated under the law.

But, the complaint says, the rate hikes were implemented eventhough the Federal Emergency Management Agency “plainly lacked andcontinues to lack the necessary information to avoid arbitrary andcapricious decision-making.”

The complaint acknowledges that there are efforts underway inCongress to delay or roll back the rate hikes, but Congress “didnot act in time to avoid” the substantial rate increases imposedthrough the law that went into effect Oct. 1.

However, the complaint added, the law “is perceived as anoncoming economic disaster to Mississippi citizens and otherpersons having homes or businesses located in a flood zone.”

The suit says that the law phases out “NFIP premium subsidiesfor owners of homes, repetitive loss properties and others who havebeen shielded from higher premiums.”

Moreover, the law also requires new flood maps, “some of whichmean properties that were never required to have flood insurancenow have to have it,” the complaint said.

“The changes are causing sizable increases in renewal premiumsfor some property owners and requiring others to purchase floodinsurance for the first time,” the complaint said.

In general, the complaint said, the Oct. 1 implementation of therate hikes are having a “devastating economic impact on thecitizens of Mississippi, particularly those region which are stillstruggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina.”