I received an email from a friend of mine who’s a commercial underwriter with a local insurance brokerage. All three of their cars were struck by hail from Sunday night’s storm. Two of the three vehicles are total losses and she wanted to know their options so they could make a good financial decision that right for them.
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!
Hail season in north Texas typically runs from April through June each year. You wouldn’t know that considering the two hail storms that struck our area in March. The combined estimated losses are around $1.1 billion dollars in damages to homes, cars, and business property. It makes you wonder what the rest of the season may look like!
Texas home insurance policies are divided into sections. The first section outlines four core property coverage items (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/home-insurance-core-property-coverage/). Last week, we looked at the second section which outlines liability coverage, or coverage that protects you if something happens to someone in your home or on your property (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/home-insurance-liability-coverage/). This week, we’ll continue this by looking at policy deductibles.
I talked with three people who are buying homes in the Dallas / Fort Worth area in the coming weeks. There are a number of questions I ask anyone buying a new home or rental property. In addition to discussing the finish out of the home it’s important to know about the updates the home has had and when they occurred. This is especially true if the home is over 10 years old. The updates insurance companies want to know about and that I discuss are in four key areas: plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling, as well as the roof.
“Will a claim cause my car insurance rate to increase? “ This is one of the most frequently asked questions I hear when talking with a client about an accident. The short answer is yes. I don’t always know how much of an impact an insurance claim will have on any person’s specific renewal premium, but claims do have an impact on their rate.
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