Have you heard about the new Ford F-150? It would be hard to miss the press on its predominate aluminum body. Ford shaved 700 pounds off last year’s model by switching from steel to aluminum for 97% of the outside of the truck’s body. Doing so helped improve theF-150’s fuel economy from 5% to 29% depending on which engine is installed.
Thirteen earthquakes struck north Texas in a 24 hour period last week hitting near the former site of Texas stadium in Irving. North Texans began asking, “Where were you when the quakes struck?” The top three quakes measured 3.1, 3.5, and 3.6 on the Richter scale, with the remaining tremors measuring between 1.6 and 2.9. Many north Texans were shaken up. Calls began to pour in to city offices, fire and police departments, as well as offices of homeowners’ insurance agents.
On November 14 of last year, I wrote a blog post on why small businesses should care about net neutrality (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/why-small-businesses-should-care-about-net-neutrality/). I wanted to revisit it because of a Wall Street Journal article posted on Monday, January 5th which stated Republicans in Congress are working on plans to fight the FCC’s rules on net neutrality. The FCC had to revisit the work they were doing on net neutrality after President Obama made a speech calling for a free and open internet available to all.
In case you missed it, House Bill 2305 was passed by the Texas Legislation on June 14, 2013. It goes into effect on March 1, 2015 and it does away with the familiar inspection sticker most Texas drivers are accustomed to receiving when we have our cars and trucks inspected each year. The goal, starting March 1st is to combine inspection sticker with our vehicle registration sticker.
Did you watch the Sugar Bowl on January 1st? In between the game played by Alabama and Ohio State, was an entertaining series of commercials from Allstate. Mayhem, the trouble making character, discovers a couple, Matt and Shannon, has posted on their Facebook page they are out of town and attending the Sugar Bowl game in New Orleans. Mayhem takes the opportunity to break into the couple’s home and proceeds to sell all their earthly belongings.
One of the questions I’m asked by realtors, mortgage originators, and home buyers is what do I think the home insurance is going to cost
Tonight, my 3 sons, one with his girlfriend, one with his wife and my granddaughter, and one solo, came over to celebrate Christmas with Sheri and me. I cooked homemade pizza (their request), and tried out a new dessert on them (they approved). It was a wonderful time to crowd around the dining room table, tell stories, laugh, recite lines from movies, and talk about what’s going on in each person’s life.
The Bob Dylan song, The Times They Are A-Changing, has never been more appropriate than now when it comes to Texas home insurance. This is especially true with insurance companies and how they are grappling with home insurance rates, hail claims, and how to cover roofs.
This sparked my thinking about what advice I’d give on the insurance side of personal finances to help you confirm you’re adequately covered and hopefully pay less than you did this year! So get out your policies, flip to the declaration pages, and let’s see what we can do in 30 minutes or less!
There are two blog posts I’ve written in the past several months on car related topics. One involved the airbag recall fracas between the auto makers, the air bag manufacturer, Takata, and Congress (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/air-bags-recalls-mysteries-driving-changes/). The other involved our privacy rights from the auto makers (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/privacy-rights-and-your-car/). I felt it was time to revisit and update these posts due to the movement in both of these stories.
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