Topeka ? It’s time for Kansas to have a law that would prohibit insurance companies from refusing to renew a policy because a policyholder filed a storm claim, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius says.

“Victims should not be punished further,” Sebelius said after deadly storms battered northeast and southeast Kansas last week.

“Storms are part of living in Kansas, and if people pay for their insurance, they shouldn’t be afraid to make a claim and recover for the possessions they’ve lost,” she said.

Several times when she was state insurance commissioner, Sebelius said, she proposed legislation that would have prohibited insurance companies from not renewing policies after consumers made claims for storm damage. The Legislature never approved the measures.

Sebelius said she told the new insurance commissioner, Sandy Praeger of Lawrence, to bring that matter back before the Legislature.

“I think it’s a very important issue in a state like this,” Sebelius said.

Praeger said she just might do it.

“If we see that happening, we may want to look at it,” Praeger said.

Between now and the start of the 2004 legislative session in January, Praeger said she would be able to asses how insurance companies responded to this spring’s storms.

She said she met with a group of insurers last week after surveying tornado damage in Wyandotte County.

“I did caution that we certainly didn’t want to see any of that (not renewing policies). People have paid premiums precisely for this kind of an event,” she said.

Sebelius said experience after past storms had shown her that some companies did not renew policies after paying heavy damage claims.