The Dallas / Fort Worth area recorded the wettest May on record with 16.97 inches of rain. We also survived the second wettest spring on record with 25.04 inches of rain from March through May. According to the National Weather Service, parts of D/FW have received between 16 and 24 inches over the past 180 days.
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.
Texas home insurance rates continue to climb and remain the highest in the country. The two reasons most insurance companies give for Texas having the highest rates are weather and the cost of claims. The top four types of home insurance claims as reported in a Texas Department of Insurance study are hail, water damage, hurricane winds, and fire. The combined total insurance companies paid out in claims was over $25 billion. Individually, hail claims accounted for $7.6 billion, water damage was $7.3 billion, hurricane winds was $6.2 billion and the amount paid for fire claims was $4.3 billion.
Sheri and I were returning to Dallas after visiting family in Birmingham for Thanksgiving. A friend and client called me on my cell phone. Since it was Saturday, that usually means a couple of things such as they need help with a claim or a copy of their ID card because they’re getting their car inspected. In this case, it was neither, she was in the process of buying a new car, and before driving off the lot with her new car, the finance manager wanted to confirm she has a current and active car insurance policy.
Roofs are one of those things that keeps coming up when I talk with people about home insurance in Texas. This is because roofs impact homeowners and home buyers in so many ways: they can cause the home insurance to cost more, cost less, or impact it in how a weather related claim is paid (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/home-insurance-roofs-impact/).
Last week I introduced 5 things no home insurance policy covers. These are acts of war, nuclear meltdown, flood, earthquake, and sewage back up (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/home-insurance-doesnt-cover/). It would be nice to think our home policies cover everything, but they don’t. In fact, last week’s list was only a partial list of what home insurance policies don’t cover. Here are three more items no Texas home insurance policy covers.
On a day with a clear blue sky dotted with the occasional puffy white cloud, Sheri and I hoisted our backpacks and headed up the Four Pass Loop Trail in Colorado. We love backpacking, and this trip promised to be enjoyable and a little challenging, while providing a week’s escape from the August heat in Dallas.
If you live in Texas and are even a little curious as to which county leads the state with the highest number of uninsured drivers, here’s your answer. Dallas County continues to be number 1 in this inauspicious category as it has for at least the last 3 years.
Texans have long proclaimed that everything is bigger in Texas! If you look at the population growth numbers for the top ten metropolitan areas from July 1, 2012 to July 1, 2013, that’s been especially true for Texas. In a Dallas morning news story published on Thursday, March 27, Texas has two of the top ten metropolitan areas in the country. They are Houston and Dallas / Fort Worth.
The last time I was “awarded” a speeding ticket was 10 years ago. Jonathan, his mom, and I were headed to College Station, Texas to celebrate Jordan’s birthday. I turned off I-45 in Madisonville when a local police official pulled behind me, switched on his lights, and pulled me over for speeding. I was, tried to talk my way out of it (I wasn’t paying attention, etc.) but it didn’t work; I still ended up with a speeding ticket.
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