The flooding that ravaged parts of Houston in April damaged 1,731 homes. Floods, such as Houston’s flood, affect much more than just homes, They impact businesses as well as cars and trucks. With that in mind, I thought we’d take a look at the impact flooding has on cars and answer the question, do you know what kind of car insurance coverage protects against a flooded vehicle.
What substances can contribute to a DUI in Texas and what is the impact on your car insurance? I wanted to raise these questions in light of an article written by AP journalist Michael Balsamo which appeared in the Dallas Morning News the other day. The article was about a young woman who was killed while riding in a friend’s car when they were struck by a driver who’d inhaled aerosol dust cleaner in order to get high.
Last week, I introduced the topic of Sheri’s and my car accident, which happened three weeks ago, and outlined what to do if you’re involved in an accident while at the accident scene. This week, I will outline the claim process we went through and how a decision we made a few months ago on our car’s coverage shaped our options. Maybe our experience will help you navigate a car insurance claim.
Two weeks ago, I was driving Sheri to work and we were involved in a car accident. The rain was coming down softly and we were talking about our plans for the day and that evening. I turned off our street, onto a larger street in east Dallas. I passed by the neighborhood 7-11 and the day care center while in the middle lane. A Cadillac Escalade was to my left waiting for oncoming traffic to turn onto a side street.
I was talking with a friend of mine who’s a Dallas area financial planner. His wife had just gotten their vehicle back from the repair shop after being in an accident where someone had hit them. The new paint on their vehicle was still curing so the car couldn’t be washed. As his wife drove on Central Expressway in Dallas, a wrench fell off a truck, struck their car, breaking the new grill and then gouging the hood. Luckily, the wrench didn’t hit the windshield in front of his wife or pass through it. She was safe, but they have another car insurance claim on their hands.
The question may seem rhetorical to some and overly obvious to most, but it’s a question researchers attempted to answer in a study released on Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their study set out to determine the role cell phones play in car wrecks, and their findings, were very interesting even though it missed a couple of potential behaviors which contribute to accidents.
Sheri dipped her toe in the sharing economy a couple of weeks ago when she downloaded the Uber app to her phone and arranged for a ride home from work while the car was in the shop. Since it was a non-peak time, the rate was incredibly affordable and it could not have been easier to arrange. We were both excited by her positive experience. I’m also excited to report Texas car insurance companies are finally providing affordable policies for Uber and Lyft drivers, as well as their passengers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sent a letter to the head of Google’s self-driving car program on February 4th stating according to federal safety standards, a self-driving or autonomous vehicle’s software could be considered a “driver.” This announcement, along with a couple of other items that have come to light in the past few weeks provide an interesting perspective on autonomous vehicles and car insurance.
How do car insurance companies handle claims when one of their clients are struck by a driver who doesn’t have car insurance? Most people never think about this, but I see it several times a year as the Dallas / Fort Worth area has historically had the highest percentage of drivers without car insurance, or uninsured motorists, in Texas. The only time most people think about this after they’ve been hit by an uninsured driver.
House Bill 2305 was passed by the Texas Legislation on June 14, 2013 and went into effect on March 1, 2015. The bill did away with the familiar inspection sticker most Texas drivers were accustomed to receiving when we had our cars and trucks inspected each year. The goal, starting March 1st of last year was to combine the inspection sticker with our vehicle registration sticker.
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