Christmas dinner has been put away and the used wrapping paper bagged and carried out. Many websites are now posting how and where to celebrate New Year’s Eve, and showing various retrospectives on the year in review. I think this is a great time to look back over the last 12 months, and peek into what’s coming for Texans and their home, car, health, and life insurance.
The Takata airbag recall been going on for a couple of years now. It began to take off when the New York Times reported the company was aware of a dangerous defect with its airbags. 11 days later, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration called for the recall to be expanded nationally from states with high humidity such as Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and along the Gulf Coast states.
I am talking with a prospective client who’s buying a condo later this month. She was unware of an option on the condo insurance quotes I prepared for her which is important because her new home has a mandatory Home Owner’s Association for the complex. In fact, regardless of whether you own or are buying a home, town house, or condo with a mandatory HOA, this one option should be included with your home insurance. It’s loss assessment coverage and it can save you thousands of dollars.
A client sent me an email asking me to quote a builder’s risk policy for a barndominium she and her husband are planning to build. I haven’t watched HGTV’s Fixer Upper series, so I called her to find out what a barndominium is, as well as to ask her the questions I needed answered to quote a builder’s risk policy for them. After finding several builder’s risk policy options for them, I began researching what companies will write a barndominium insurance policy once the construction is complete.
Sheri and I recently watched a documentary on tiny homes. We enjoyed it and talked about could we live in one, what would it look like, and whether Sheri could build it (she likes power tools). I began thinking about home insurance for tiny homes; which carriers will write a policy for that, what issues may need to be considered, and what underwriters will want to know.
What was your first job? Aside from babysitting neighborhood kids for $1.00 an hour, mine was helping my uncle Jere sell women’s shoes at his store on the west side of Birmingham when I was 15. I didn’t have to worry its impact on my parent’s car insurance rate because I wasn’t a licensed driver and I rode the bus across town to Jere’s store.
I spoke to a group of people today about car insurance, specifically what a typical Texas policy includes and how to determine the right amount of coverage for each person. I enjoyed the interaction and questions that arose from the presentation and felt like everyone learned how to better evaluate their car insurance needs.
Nobody likes home insurance claims, but they do happen. While we may not be able to avoid claims, we may be able to prevent some of them from happening. This is especially true for the claims that aren’t caused by Mother Nature!
Does your home insurance policy ever change? Many people may be inclined to think policies don’t change, but they do. In fact, home insurance policies change all the time. Coverage is added or removed and underwriters determine that something isn’t a risk or is a huge risk much more frequently than you know.
On September 20th, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced 15 safety guidelines for autonomous vehicles. The purpose of the guidelines is to provide guidance for traditional automakers and companies such as Uber, Google, and Tesla as they move toward releasing driverless vehicles. Here’s a synopsis of the 15 guidelines as written by Cecilia Kang for the New York Times.
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