One of the sayings I heard after moving to Dallas was, “If you’re tired of the weather in Texas, just wait a few hours and it will change.” That may not be entirely accurate, but our weather does tend to be filled with surprises. 2017 held a couple of major surprises for Texans and its effect on home and car insurance will be felt this year. Let’s look at what happened and how it will impact home insurance this year.
Last week we looked at how you, the buyer and homeowner, impact your home insurance rate. The second broad category impacting your home insurance premium is your home itself. There are several factors and none of them include your home’s purchase price, what you could sell it for, nor what the local appraisal district sets the value at. Let’s look at what does count.
At the end of each year, there are several articles and blog posts published on end of year financial planning and moves to make. Some are written to address end of year tax moves you can take now, while others address items to rebalance your portfolio better, open an IRA, and improve your financial position now and in 2017.
In August a slow moving unnamed storm system settled over Louisiana dumping up to 31.39 inches of rain over 72 hours resulting in a 1,000 year rain. Massive flooding occurred affecting 188,729 homes and 507,495 people, of which 60,000 were damaged by flood waters. It’s estimated that 78% of the homes damaged by flood waters did not have flood insurance.
3 major hail storms have rocked the Dallas / Fort Worth area over the last 6 weeks. Most of the attention has been on the damage to roofs, but our cars, trucks, and SUVs have taken a beating too! I thought this would be an appropriate time to look at car insurance and hail claims. We’ll examine what coverage applies, determining whether or not to file a claim, options if your car is totaled. I’ll also touch on one important thing to ask when talking with claim adjusters!
I was talking with a friend of mine who’s a Dallas area financial planner. His wife had just gotten their vehicle back from the repair shop after being in an accident where someone had hit them. The new paint on their vehicle was still curing so the car couldn’t be washed. As his wife drove on Central Expressway in Dallas, a wrench fell off a truck, struck their car, breaking the new grill and then gouging the hood. Luckily, the wrench didn’t hit the windshield in front of his wife or pass through it. She was safe, but they have another car insurance claim on their hands.
March is here and that signals the arrival of the home buying season. It also means it’s time for me to take a revisit home insurance. Beginning with this post, I’ll outline the coverage found on a typical Texas home insurance policy before drilling down into the different areas of a home policy. The goal is to help new home buyers know what to look for when shopping for home insurance, as well has raise questions to consider they may not have thought of.
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