Tag: home claims

Home Insurance and Home Updates

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.

Read More »

Surviving the next Texas Ice Storm

Winter came early to north Texas last week when the rain turned into sleet and the temperatures plummeted 50 degrees from Wednesday’s high of 80. The ice built up on all surfaces including tree limbs and power lines. Some of the power lines snapped and others were ripped from poles when ice laden limbs broke off from trees and fell onto the already strained lines.

Read More »

The Ice Storm, Trees, and Home Insurance Claims

Thursday evening the rain and the temperatures fell as an arctic cold front came through Dallas, Fort Worth, and all of north Texas. Wet roads, power lines, trees, and shrubs began to accumulate ice. The ice built up, weighing down tree limbs and power lines causing them to sag. Limbs snapped from the weight of accumulated ice in the early hours of the morning sounding like rifle shots and landing with thumps in yards, on cars, and on rooftops.

Read More »

9 More Ways to Save on Home Insurance

Last week we examined four discounts that lower the cost of home insurance including: A home’s age, Account / multi-policy discount, Alarm / protective devices and Mature homeowner discount. Here are 9 more ways to help reduce the cost of your home insurance.

Read More »

Does Home Insurance Cover Meteor Damage?

On Friday, February 15th, a meteor entered the earth’s atmosphere at approximately 9:20 a.m. above Chelyabinsk, a town of about 1 million inhabitants in central Russia. The 50 foot wide, 7,700 ton meteor caused a blinding flash of light as it traveled at 40,000 miles per hour or over 52 times the speed of sound. Most of the meteor’s energy was consumed in the upper atmosphere about 9 miles above the earth’s surface. The energy released in the upper atmosphere was equivalent to at least 20 atomic bombs about the size of one exploded above Hiroshima.

Read More »

Does your home policy cover foundation damage?

One of the questions I’m asked about a home policy is whether or not it has foundation coverage. If you’ve lived in the Dallas / Fort Worth area, or many other parts of Texas, you know our soil moves. This seems to affect north Texas more than any other part of the state. The reason is our homes are built on “blackland prairie.” This is an ecoregion that runs from the Red River to San Antonio. The soil has a high clay content that contracts and expands. This “soil movement” can either …

Read More »