BATON ROUGE- Louisiana's property insurer of last resort expects to shift about 10,000 policies to private insurance companies for 2016, a move that will reduce premiums by roughly $20 million.
    
Citizens officials say seven private companies have requested policies from Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Thursday.
    
So far, insurance agents have authorized the transfer of 9,458 policies, and that number will likely reach 10,000.
    
The state-backed insurer has been steadily reducing the number of policies it holds after 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused an influx of customers who couldn't get coverage from private insurers.