I was 14 or 15 at the time and sitting in the back seat of my dad’s 1972 Pontiac Grand Am. My two younger sisters were on the back seat with me while my youngest sister sat on my mom’s lap in the front passenger seat. No one had a car seat back then and most of us rode in our cars without buckling our seat belts.
Every couple of months, I get a call from a realtor, an insurance agent, or a mortgage loan officer. The stories are variations on a theme; they have a client that’s trying to buy a home but there’s one little issue that’s threatening to derail the close. Usually these gotchas present themselves when the home buyer has found their dream home only to discover their current insurer is unable to insure it. This usually is not discovered until two weeks or less before the scheduled close and creates a mad scramble to find insurance for the buyer’s dream home. They call me.
On Wednesday, April 17, a fire broke out at the West Fertilizer Company in West, Texas, a community of 2,849 about 70 miles south of Dallas. 10 volunteer firemen and two people who joined them responded to the calls that began being fielded by the 911 call center at 7:33. As first responders, they began to assess the massive fire and plan how to begin putting out the blaze. They were killed moments later from the explosion that occurred at 7:51 pm.
What was the first word that popped into your mind when you read the title? Safe, slow, controlled? Or was it aggressive, fast, exciting? I don’t ask this question anymore because most people described how they drive. They weren’t thinking in terms of a type or class of driver. Needless to say, some of the answers I received were both humorous and telling.
Last week, I introduced Ben and Amy (not their real names) who are first time home buyers in the McKinney / Allen area of north Texas. Because they are buying their first home, this also means they are first time buyers of home insurance, something Ben admitted to me, he knows nothing about.
One of my clients in the Frisco / McKinney area emailed me last week. Beth (not her real name) asked me if I write credit life policies because she was looking into it. I replied to her email letting her know I don’t sell credit life and then asked her what she was trying to accomplish. Beth is a single mom with three kids and her goal is to pay off her home and leave it to her children in the event of her death.
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