Tag: Fort Worth car insurance

BFF Wrecks Your Car. Who’s Car Insurance Pays?

You and three of your best friends are headed to the Texas Hill country for a weekend to get away and catch up with each other. You’ve been looking forward to it for weeks! It’s been a very long week with late nights to wrap up a project before heading out of town and you’re tired. You ask one of your friends to drive your car while you rest. They accidentally clip another car while passing. No one got hurt, but it’s your friend’s fault and your car.

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Car Insurance and Driverless Cars

Driverless cars are coming, and they’re coming sooner than most of us think. One only has to search “driverless car” on Google, Yahoo, or Bing and there will appear over 3,000,000 results for your reading or viewing enjoyment. Google has retrofitted Lexus and Toyota models for testing, not to mention their 100 mini commuter cars that look very similar to a Little Tykes car my youngest son had.

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Car Insurance and Not-at-Fault Claims

Early in my insurance career, I was attending a larger party with a number of friends when a woman came up to me with tears in her eyes. Her husband, who was coming in their other car, had been involved in an accident not far from where we were gathered and she did not know what to do. We left the party together in her car and I drove us to where the accident had occurred, a southbound service road of North Central Expressway in Dallas.

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Texas Car Insurance Rates Rise

If you think Texas car insurance rates are on the rise, it’s not your imagination. Based on a report released earlier this year by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Texas premiums now rank 11th highest in the nation. Two years ago, we were ranked 14th highest in the nation. The average Texas car insurance premium, based on the 2009 data used for the NAIC report (the most recent nationwide data available), is now $1,022 a year. The national annual average rate is $901.

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File a Car Insurance Claim or Accept Direct Payment?

A client called me last week with a question about how to handle something. Her teen had been in a little accident with an adult, and it was the adult’s fault. The good news is the teen was unhurt and the damage to her car was minimal; the bumpers simply rubbed together. According to the body shop the client visited, they could either remove, sand, and repaint the bumper or replace it. The difference in cost was minimal.

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Insurance Implications if You Uber, Airbnb, etc.

Yahoo posted an interesting article on June 2nd listing 25 Ways to Make Money Renting Your Home, Car, Kitchen and More to Total Strangers. I am always fascinated to see how people make money. In this digital age, it’s possible for anyone to participate in the sharing economy and make a little extra money too. The one thing that’s missing from this article and other blog posts I’ve seen are the insurance implications for the owner of the home or vehicle, and there are some.

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Car Insurance and GAP Coverage

There have been some interesting articles in the news related to cars over the past few months. When taken individually they do not appear to be significant, yet when combined together, they paint an interesting picture for many Americans. The pieces of this puzzle involve rising new car prices, the growing length of car loan terms, and vehicle depreciation.

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Car Insurance: When Should Your Kids Have Their Own?

My friend’s son graduated from Texas A&M University and moved to Dallas to begin working with a company in the Las Colinas area. As the mom and I discussed the policy, I asked her how long she planned to leave her son on their car insurance policy. She and her husband were thinking about “encouraging” him to get his own policy now that he’s on his own. In response, I asked her if she’d like to know what I recommend all my parents who are facing the same decision.

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The States with the Best and Worst Drivers

Which state has the worst drivers in America and what other states comprised the top 10 list? Conversely, which states have the best drivers in the county? A study published in December of 2013 answered these questions in their best and worst drivers list.

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Two Questions about Teens and Car Insurance

A client sent me an email two weeks ago that turned into an enjoyable “conversation” over a series of email messages. My client has a teen daughter that’s about to get her learner’s permit and she wanted to know when she should add her daughter to her car insurance policy.

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