A family was referred to me last year to review their policies. They had home insurance policies on two homes, car insurance for all their vehicles, and an umbrella policy. Everything was straight forward with one exception: the second home. It was originally a barn that had been converted to a home.
?2013 has come to a close and 2014 is off and running. Housing in north Texas rocketed last year, however many predict it will cool a bit in 2014. The population of Texas continues to grow at a rapid pace. While the rate of growth is predicted to slow a bit in the coming years, it will still grow.
One of my clients emailed me on Saturday. She’d recently shopped at a Dallas area Target store to pick up some items for Christmas and had just read the news about the credit card breach at Target stores across the country. She was concerned and wanted to know what to do.
North Texas spent last weekend digging out from the previous week’s ice storm. The sun finally came out and we got above freezing allowing the ice to melt. By the middle of the week, power was restored to most people, schools were in session, people were working, and the roads were clear.
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.
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.
Before credit reports and scores existed, financial institutions had to guess whether someone was a good applicant (or risk) for taking out a loan. Credit reports and scores were “invented” to take the guess work out of it. The national average credit score is approximately 672 – – but how are credit scores calculated?
A few weeks ago, an insurance broker made the national news. His name is Jerry Goldman and he was the insurance broker for Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson. Goldman pleaded guilty to mail fraud for overcharging Hanks and Wilson hundreds of thousands of dollars in excess premiums. Over a 13 year period, Jerry Goldman inflated premiums as much as 600% and presented phony invoices to hide the overcharges. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison and ordered to pay about $840,000 in restitution.
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