Tag: McKinney home insurance

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.

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Home Insurance and Mortgage Ratios

New home mortgage guidelines went into effect on January 10th. The new guidelines were drafted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and they are designed to protect consumers from some of the lending abuses that led to the financial meltdown in 2008. Lending practices were relaxed prior to 2008. This enabled some people to qualify for home loans who would not have qualified under the previous and stricter guidelines. When the market imploded, millions of people were unable to make their mortgage payments and lost their homes to foreclosure.

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Earthquakes and Home Insurance

zle, Texas has been in the north Texas news a lot lately. The reason is earthquakes. In the past 12 months, the residents of Azle have experienced 33 earthquakes, with 30 of them happening since November. The quakes have registered anywhere from a 2.1 to a 3.7 on the Richter scale. Mineral Wells, a town to the west of Azle, has experienced 3 earthquakes within the same time period.

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A Baker’s Dozen Ways to Save on Home Insurance

No one wants to pay more for their Texas home insurance than they have to any more than they want to pay their hard earned money to someone who’ll nickel and dime a claim. What people want is to pay a fair price for their home insurance without being over or under insured. With that in mind, here are a dozen ways you can save on your Texas home insurance.

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Annual Report on Texas Insurance 2014

?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.

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Credit Card Breach at Target

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.

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Looking Back at the North Texas Ice Storm

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.

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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.

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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.

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