Theriot advised the Legislative Audit Advisory Council, a panel that oversees and enforces audits of public bodies, that Attorney General Charles Foti has provided his office with a legal opinion stating that the Property Insurance Association of Louisiana, the administrator of the state-run Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., is a public body that must adhere to the state's open meetings law.
In addition, the opinion iterates that the state's high-risk auto insurance pool, the Louisiana Automobile Insurance Plan, which is also administered by the property insurance association, is a public entity and must hold its meetings in public. The Citizens board has been meeting in public for years.
The opinion was requested by Theriot after he was being stonewalled for information and denied access to records and personnel at Citizens and the two other agencies for audits. He complained to lawmakers that the auto group and the property insurance association never met in public.
He asked Foti's office for a legal opinion on whether the two state agencies must meet in public. Association attorneys said that the property insurance association was founded in 1888 as a private organization, although it subsequently became a state agency.
Theriot said Wednesday that all three agencies have begun cooperating with his auditors and they now have "unfettered access" to records and personnel. At its recent session, the Legislature passed two bills requiring all three agencies to cooperate with Theriot and make documents available to auditors. Theriot had suggested some documents may have been destroyed before his auditors could review them.