Insurers have backed away from writing insurance in Texas ever since an unexpected mountain of claims for mold damage developed following a case that saw a $32 million jury award for the homeowner.

In reaction, the department announced Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor's decision last week to expand the state-administered Texas Windstorm Insurance Association pool to cover the entire state, and to trigger a state market assistance program, called the Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan.

Mr. Woods said that before going to a FAIR Plan, the law "already provides a series of preconditions and steps that ought not be short-circuited."

He said Texas already had a Market Assistance Plan in place to help consumers find insurance, and "this is the intended mechanism for allowing the insurance industry to address availability issues."

According to Mr. Wood, the department's plan presupposes that MAP will not work, and "that has not been demonstrated," he said.

He warned that the windstorm plan, in taking on a bigger area and adding fire and explosion coverage, will have to respond to more than hurricane losses, and financially it is "not presently geared-up for such a role."

Mr. Woods said the FAIR Plan concept, created to provide insurance after the nation's 1960s-era urban riots, "was never intended to be a mechanism for writing broad homeowners policies on a statewide basis."

If the department goes ahead, he asked that it use the market assistance program to channel business, and only if no voluntary market insurer was willing to write the risk. Insurers should be allowed to pass on to consumers any assessments to cover losses for shortfalls in the fund, he said.