A client called me last month to discuss an accident he’d had and filing a car insurance claim. He’d backed into an object visiting a family member on a trip and damaged the bumper and one of the brake light kits on his car. I provided him with the information he needed to initiate the claim and transferred him to the claims department with his car insurance company.
I’ve received several calls from clients over the past couple of months. In each case, they’d received a notice from their mortgage company notifying them their mortgage payment was changing due to a deficit in their escrow account. They had the option of paying the escrow shortage or it could be factored into their already increased monthly home mortgage payment. The same thing happened to Sheri and me.
Three weeks ago, I was outlining a post for Monday’s blog when I discovered my website had been hacked. My familiar main page featuring my latest two posts along with links to pages on home, car, life, and business insurance had been replaced by someone claiming to be a jihadist and that they now held all my previous posts. There was no request for ransom, just the smug comment they’d done this to me.
I’ve started a conversation with Sheri and my sons. We haven’t completed the discussion nor arrived at any decisions yet, but the questions we’re working through has provided some interesting initial dialogue. The questions are what do they, and myself, want to have happen with my digital assets, and who to name as my digital heir?
I’ve never hit a deer or other large animal, but I have come close, usually when heading out to or home from a backpacking trip. I’ve seen them walk in front of an oncoming car and just miss getting hit. Luckily for the drivers of the car, and the deer, they were able stop the car or SUV safely without a loss of control and give the deer another day. Not everyone is so fortunate, as the amount car insurance companies and the Federal Highway Administration reports.
For the last 10 years, Texans have had the ignominious distinction of paying the highest or second highest home insurance rates in the nation. This year, we caught a break and are currently number three with an average annual premium of $1,625. Florida beat us out to take the top spot with an average annual premium of $1,991 followed by Louisiana with an average annual premium of $1,722 according to Value Penguin for 2015. Rounding out the top five were Mississippi ($1,451 a year) and Oklahoma ($1,428 a year).
In January, MetLife, the largest insurance company by assets, was deemed as systemically important, or “too big to fail,” by the Financial Stability Oversight Council. In other words, regulators believe MetLife is so big (over $902 billion in assets) and entwined with the financial system that it could threaten the economy if it collapsed similar to what we saw happen with AIG in 2008.
North Texans finally got a taste of winter weather over the past two days when the rain that fell Sunday night froze leaving our streets covered with a half inch of ice. Snow is in the forecast for Wednesday morning which complicates rush hour traffic. We don’t get this weather very often, but it does provide an excellent backdrop to review safe driving practices in all kinds of inclement weather.
No home policy covers everything, so options allow people to tailor their policy to meet their specific needs by adding the coverage they need, but not paying for coverage they don’t need. Here are 5 more options worth knowing about.
There are three bills that have been filed in the current Texas Legislative session; two are directly related to car insurance, while the third is not. Two of the bills aim to tackle the problem of named driver policies and exclusions, while the third bill focuses on the issue of texting and driving.
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