By Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney    1/21/12    GCN

There has been much attention paid lately to a report published by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) in which Mississippi scored lowest of the 18 coastal states analyzed for hurricane safety and property protection.

The study was a first-of-its-kind look at residential building code requirements in hurricane-prone states. Mississippi scored poorly because we have no statewide building codes in effect. We do have building codes in effect in five of the six coastal counties most likely to be affected by hurricanes.

While I believe strong building codes save lives and property and have advocated for building codes in Mississippi while serving in the Mississippi Legislature, I have several problems with the IBHS rating.

First of all, we quickly noticed that our sister state, Alabama, scored 14 points higher than Mississippi even though they, also, have no statewide building codes. In conversations with officials at IBHS, we questioned the source of the data used to evaluate us and how Alabama could have scored so much higher than Mississippi even though they actually have less building code requirements than we do.

We were told the data used was researched through existing statutes and public sources of information and in many cases, no actual person was questioned. In a nutshell, having building codes in part of the state did not qualify a state for a higher score. They were only looking at statewide codes.

Alabama scored higher than us because, even though they have no statewide codes, they do have requirements for licensing general contractors, plumbing, mechanical and electrical contractors and requirements for each to pass a licensing exam. They also have a mechanism in place for reacting to consumer complaints and the contractor or licensees are subject to disciplinary action. Alabama also requires continuing education for mechanical and electrical contractors.

Alabama also requires jurisdictions that adopt building codes to adopt the 2009 International Residential Code. In Mississippi, where codes are in force in five of the lower six counties, we allow local entities to adopt IRC 2006, a less recent code.

So the question that naturally occurs is, what is this going to mean to ratepayers in Mississippi? Hopefully, not much. We are told by IBHS that insurance companies will not use this report as a vehicle to raise rates, that the report is understood to be a guide for the states to see where they need improvement in building codes and enforcement. IBHS has told us that reinsurers, so critical to the state-run windpool, have also indicated they would not use the report to raise rates for reinsurance.

I think that while the report may not cause rates to increase, neither will rates decrease until the states like ours that score low raise their requirements. It is important to note here that building codes and code enforcement are not a function of the Mississippi Insurance Department or Commissioner.

Enactment and enforcement of building codes is a function of the state Legislature and local governments. While I firmly believe, and evidence shows, that strong building codes protect property and lives and could lead to lower homeowner premiums, the enforcement of codes is not in my jurisdiction, nor should it be.

The Legislature and local governments can and should make the determination of how much code enforcement they want in force to protect their own citizens and how strict licensing and examination of contractors should be.