Legislative Session Session Is More Than Halfway Done

This This week week marked marked an an important important milestone in our work under the Gold Dome. By the end of the week, we completed Legislative Day 22, meaning we are officially more than halfway through the 2026 legislative session.

We intro- duced legislation focused on insurance affordability and accountability and passed legislation to increase insurance accessibility for contractors, ratepayer protections to safeguard your electricity bill, and reforms to benefit foster children and families.

If you have any questions about these bills or others, please always feel welcome to contact me or my office. Insurance affordability and accountability Many House members worked alongside Insurance Commissioner John King to develop a package of bills aimed at reducing Georgian’s insurance premiums. Together, they introduced four bills that, if passed, will give the Insurance Commissioner better tools to hold insurance companies and bad actors accountable to Georgians.

House Bill 1344 - Includes stronger fraud enforcement, storm claims protections, and increases more than 40 different fines the In- surance Commissioner can levy against insurance companies House Bill 1274 Ensures if an auto insurance company profits 5% above expected profit for 3 straight years, they must file a rate decrease House Bill 1262 Surprise billing, mental health, and general fine authority is increased from $2,000 to $10,000 and from $10,000 to $25,000 House Bill 1263 Currently, insurance companies can pursue refunds for premium tax payment ‘‘errors” over long periods of time. One company pursued a $150 million refund seven years after the payment was made. This bill shortens the clawback period to 3 years.

We also passed House Bill 987 to create Voluntary Portable Benefits, which helps the more than 1 million Georgians who work in a contract role. The bill would allow companies and individuals to contribute to portable benefit accounts for self-employed workers. These worker-owned accounts would be managed by a bank or third-party provider and would support benefits like health insurance premiums, paid time off, and retirement savings.

Ratepayer protections from data centers Making sure our residential and small business ratepayers are protected from the costs associated with data center development is an important piece of the puzzle as we balance growth with preserving our quality of life. House Bill 1063 safeguards energy affordability for Georgia families and small businesses by ensuring data centers and large-load consumers pay their own way up front.

Foster youth and families Our state has around 11,000 children in foster care and it’s an honor to fight for our most vulnerable and those that support them. This week we passed House Bill 256, which renames the “‘Foster Parents Bill of Rights” to the “‘Foster Placements Bill of Rights” and expands those protections to include relative caregivers and fictive kin, recognizing the critical role they play in caring for vulnerable children. The bill also strengthens caregiver rights by allowing reasonable parenting decisions, access to volunteer advocates during DHS meetings, protection from retaliation, and the ability to seek independent legal counsel.

We also passed House Bill 943 which creates a pilot program for early screening of autism in foster youth. Autism is 6x more common in foster youth, and early diagnosis can reduce the number of placements that a foster child has and helps create stability.

Rep. Chris Erwin serves in the Georgia House of Representatives as a Republican and represents District 32, which contains Stephens County, Banks County, Habersham County, and Jackson County. He may be reached at chris.erwin@ house.ga.gov.

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