Articles Posted in General

Home owners in Grand Prairie, Arlington, Grapevine, Colleyville, Irving, Crowley, De Soto, Dallas, Fort Worth, Mesquite, Lake Worth, and other places in the DFW metropolitan area do not have some of the fears and concerns that home owners along the Gulf Coast have. But there are always concerns about claims denials resulting in a homeowner taking a loss. So, being aware of other ways of recovering losses is important.

The Miami Herald ran a story on October 26, 2001, titled Homeowners File Lawsuit Against Chinese Drywall Manufacturer, Distributor.

The history of these Chinese drywall claims is pretty easy to follow. After storms hit the Gulf Coast area in the early part of this decade, a lot of the damaged homes were repaired using Chinese drywall. This drywall was defective causing problems with home owners and devaluing effected homes.

Few people in Grand Prairie, Arlington, Mansfield, Fort Worth, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, or other places across Tarrant County like the use of credit scoring to get insurance. It is allowed in Texas.

The Insurance Journal ran a story on October 6, 2011, titled “Mass. Agents Gathering Signatures for Insurance Credit Score Ban.”

The article tells us that a Massachusetts independent agents group is confident that banning auto insurers’ use of credit scores and other socioeconomic factors will become law in coming months.

Farmers and ranchers in Weatherford, Mineral Wells, Aledo, Springtown, and other places in Parker or Palo Pinto counties may have to deal with crop insurance issues on occasions. Here is a legal case that deals with crop insurance.

The case was decided by the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Paris Division, in 1997. The style of the case is John Earl Bullard v. Southwest Crop Insurance Agency, Inc., Blakely Crop Hail, Inc., Farmers Alliance Mutual Insurance, Co.

There is a federal law called the Federal Crop Insurance Act. Due to the inherent risks of insuring crops, insurance companies in the early 1900’s refused to write multi-peril crop insurance policies. In an effort to remedy the problem, Congress passed the Federal Crop Insurance Act (FCIA) in 1938. Is purpose was to “promote the national welfare by improving the economic stability of agriculture through a sound system of crop insurance ….” To carry out this purpose, Congress created an agency within the Department of Agriculture known as the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). The FCIC assists in carrying out the goals of the FCIA by providing crop insurance to farmers in the following ways: (1) selling insurance through private insurance agents, (2) reinsuring private insurance companies that provide crop insurance, and (3) providing crop insurance directly to the farmer.

Anybody in Grand Prairie, Arlington, Fort Worth, Mansfield, Crowley, Burleson, Benbrook, Lake Worth, Azle, Saginaw, or anywhere else in Tarrant Count should be concerned about rising cost of insurance.

The Houston Chronicle published an article on September 20, 2011, dealing with auto insurance and rising rates. The author is Purva Patel who investigates and writes lots of articles concerning insurance in the state of Texas. The title of the article is, “Insurers Raising Auto Rates.”

The article tells us that many of the state’s larger auto insurers are raising rates across the state. These insurers include but are not limited to, Allstate Fire & Casualty, USAA, State Farm, and Farmers Insurance.

For sure, anybody in Grand Prairie, Arlington, Fort Worth, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, or anywhere else in North Texas wants to get rates as cheaply as they can on their homeowners insurance policy, but they would like to thing their coverage is staying the same. Well that may not be the case.

The Houston Chronicle published a story On September 12, 2011, which most homeowners would be interested to know. The author is Purva Patel, who has written on the topic of insurance before. The title of the article is, “State Farm Move Could Mean Less Homeowner Coverage.”

The article tells us that State Farm has proposed changing home insurance deductibles. Most anybody who has tried to get their rates lowered knows that buy raising the deductible, the yearly cost for the insurance goes down. What is different here is that State Farm is trying to make the new coverage mandatory. Consumer advocates warn this would hurt some.

For someone in Grand Prairie, Arlington, Fort Worth, Hurst, Euless, Bedford, Grapevine, Colleyville, Keller, Roanoke, Saginaw, or anywhere else in Tarrant County or Texas, knowing and understanding the deductibles in an insurance policy is important.

The Washington Post ran an article on September 8, 2011, titled “Irene Storm Damage Led Insurers To Apply Prohibited Deductible Charges.”

The article, written by Joe Stephens, tells about some insurers incorrectly applying deductibles to claims resulting from Irene damages in Maryland. The person in the story, Judi Nowottnick, a school teacher, lost electrical power for eight days She had two refrigerators containing four dozen crabs and $1,000 of other food which spoiled. On top of that, she spent an additional $400 on fast food while the electricity was out.