I’ve started a conversation with Sheri and my sons. We haven’t completed the discussion nor arrived at any decisions yet, but the questions we’re working through has provided some interesting initial dialogue. The questions are what do they, and myself, want to have happen with my digital assets, and who to name as my digital heir?
I’ve never hit a deer or other large animal, but I have come close, usually when heading out to or home from a backpacking trip. I’ve seen them walk in front of an oncoming car and just miss getting hit. Luckily for the drivers of the car, and the deer, they were able stop the car or SUV safely without a loss of control and give the deer another day. Not everyone is so fortunate, as the amount car insurance companies and the Federal Highway Administration reports.
For the last 10 years, Texans have had the ignominious distinction of paying the highest or second highest home insurance rates in the nation. This year, we caught a break and are currently number three with an average annual premium of $1,625. Florida beat us out to take the top spot with an average annual premium of $1,991 followed by Louisiana with an average annual premium of $1,722 according to Value Penguin for 2015. Rounding out the top five were Mississippi ($1,451 a year) and Oklahoma ($1,428 a year).
I recently had a conversation with one of our Dallas client’s regarding her car insurance renewal. She’s in sales and I wanted to confirm if we had her driving type classified correctly. I asked if she commuted to an office and whether or not she met with clients and prospective clients in their office. It turns out she does, and she’s involved in outside meetings almost as much as she’s in the office.
A friend of mine called me a couple of weeks ago. She and her husband recently bought their first home together in east Dallas and are remodeling it. They smelled gas and called Atmos Energy who discovered a leak in the gas line between the meter and their home. She wanted to know whether her home insurance policy covered the repair of the gas line.
In January, MetLife, the largest insurance company by assets, was deemed as systemically important, or “too big to fail,” by the Financial Stability Oversight Council. In other words, regulators believe MetLife is so big (over $902 billion in assets) and entwined with the financial system that it could threaten the economy if it collapsed similar to what we saw happen with AIG in 2008.
North Texans finally got a taste of winter weather over the past two days when the rain that fell Sunday night froze leaving our streets covered with a half inch of ice. Snow is in the forecast for Wednesday morning which complicates rush hour traffic. We don’t get this weather very often, but it does provide an excellent backdrop to review safe driving practices in all kinds of inclement weather.
No home policy covers everything, so options allow people to tailor their policy to meet their specific needs by adding the coverage they need, but not paying for coverage they don’t need. Here are 5 more options worth knowing about.
I met with a new client in the Carrollton area two weeks ago to complete setting up her car insurance. Once that was done, she wanted to discuss life insurance. She has a term policy which is beyond the 10 year term it was written under resulting in annual rate increases. She wanted to know what her options are.
There are three bills that have been filed in the current Texas Legislative session; two are directly related to car insurance, while the third is not. Two of the bills aim to tackle the problem of named driver policies and exclusions, while the third bill focuses on the issue of texting and driving.
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