Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney
“As your Insurance Commissioner, protecting consumers in the State of Mississippi is my number one priority,” Chaney says.
Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney is raising awareness of what President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” tax proposals making their way through Congress could mean to Magnolia State property owners.
Chaney joined Y’all Politics on Thursday to outline just how much the Democrats’ tax proposal will cost the nearly 500,000 property owners in Mississippi. The Biden plan will drive insurance prices higher, causing consumers at all income levels to suffer financially, not just those earning over $400,000/year as the President has promised.
The average Mississippi family’s property insurance premiums could rise as much as $230 due to the provision that would increase the price of international reinsurance, the financial backstop that allows the U.S. insurance market to function.
Commissioner Chaney says many large reinsurers are based in Bermuda, where low taxes limit expenses, allowing reinsurers to be competitive in their pricing. Their cost-dampening influence reverberates through the international market to the benefit of U.S. insurance buyers. However, provisions in the international tax proposals being discussed as part of the ‘reconciliation bill’ to pass President Biden’s plan would support implementation of a global minimum tax rate of between 15 and 28 percent, which would drive the price of overseas reinsurance higher. A reinsurer in Bermuda forced to pay more in taxes would respond by raising prices to target the same return they had before the new tax took effect. In Mississippi alone, property insurance costs would increase between $100 million and $160 million a year. Commissioner Chaney says this is $130 to $230 of additional cost to every Mississippi family, regardless of their income level.
Commissioner Chaney is encouraging Mississippians to contact their federal delegation, especially Democrat Congressman Bennie Thompson who is an ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Biden.
You can watch the full interview with Commissioner Chaney below.
Frank Corder
