Latest Texas Headlines
All the headlines from our Texas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Courts Order Combined $10K in Restitution to Texas Mutual
Mar 21 2014 // Travis County, Texas, district courts sentenced two men, in separate cases, on workers’ compensation fraud-related charges. The men collected a combined $9,928 in benefits they were not entitled to, according to...
Haigood Appointed to Texas Windstorm Insurance Association Board
Mar 20 2014 // Texas Commissioner of Insurance Julia Rathgeber appointed Lyndell Haigood to serve on the board of directors of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) for a term to expire in March 2015. The board oversees all...
Report: Parts of $60M Texas High School Stadium May Need Rebuilding
Mar 19 2014 // Portions of a $60 million Texas high school football stadium that opened just two years ago may have to be demolished and rebuilt after structural flaws were found. A report by Plano-based Nelson Forensics says cracks...
Texas Insurance Regulators Invite Input on Surplus Lines Rules
Mar 18 2014 // Texas regulators are seeking comments on new rules related to surplus lines insurance. The Texas Department of Insurance is considering rules to implement Senate Bill (SB) 697 and 951, and House Bill (HB) 1405 (83rd Texas...
Lawsuit Filed Against General Motors Over Ignition-Switch Recall Losses
Mar 16 2014 // General Motors Co. was sued on behalf of vehicle owners over an ignition flaw in some small- model cars as it faces regulators’ questions about this year’s recall of 1.6 million vehicles. Bob Hilliard, one of...
Front Brings 1,000-Foot Wall of Dust to West Texas
Mar 14 2014 // A wall of dust as tall as 1,000 feet and 200 miles wide that roared across parts of West Texas and New Mexico is yet another sign of how rain-starved the region is. National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Aldrich in...
Higginbotham and Odessa, Texas-Based Edgmon Insurance Agency Merge
Mar 14 2014 // Independent insurance brokers Higginbotham, based in Fort Worth, and Edgmon Insurance Agency, headquartered in Odessa, Texas, have merged their operations. Edgmon Insurance is a family-owned agency going on its third...
Rising Population Leads to Increase in Texas Auto Injury Crashes, Fatalities
Mar 13 2014 // Texas’ rapidly expanding population has given rise to something else: more deadly car crashes. The number of fatal automobile crashes in Texas has been on the decline since 1980, but that trend may have come to a...
Texas Man Pleads Guilty to Workers’ Comp Fraud; Ordered to Repay $806K
Mar 12 2014 // Texas Mutual Insurance Co. reported that Howard Douglas Whiddon of Dripping Springs pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation fraud-related charges in a Travis County district court. The court sentenced Whiddon to 10...
Texas Company Stalls on Paying $6M Judgment in Iowa Disabled Workers Case
Mar 12 2014 // Federal and state officials are having trouble collecting the multimillion-dollar judgment a Texas company was ordered to pay for mistreating 32 mentally disabled workers at an Iowa labor camp. The Des Moines Register...
Study To Review Texas Hurricane Protection Ideas
Mar 11 2014 // A new $4 million study will look at two ideas that have been proposed as ways to protect the Houston area from hurricane storm surges that could cause billions of dollars in damage and wreak havoc on the largest...
Texas Woman Sues SMU After Alleged Rapist Is Acquitted
Mar 10 2014 // A Southern Methodist University student who says she was raped on the Texas campus is suing both the school and her alleged attacker, seeking damages of more than $1 million. The Dallas Morning News reported the lawsuit...
My New Markets
Mar 10 2014 // My New Markets is brought to you by Insurance Journal’s sister website: www.mynewmarkets.com Need a Market? Find it. FAST. Primary Flood Market Detail: SeaCoast Underwriters Inc. can write primary flood insurance for...
Report: Texas Accounts 40% of U.S. Oil Field Deaths
Mar 10 2014 // Texas accounted for about 40 percent of the 663 workers the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said were killed nationwide in oil field-related industries between 2007 and 2012, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation...
A Buyer’s Market for Reinsurance
Mar 10 2014 // For insurance companies, now is a good time to buy reinsurance. Prices are down and terms and conditions are favorable, according to Mathew Wulf, vice president, state relations and assistant general counsel, for the...
Travelers: Strain Is Most Common Workplace Injury in Texas
Mar 10 2014 // The four most common workplace injuries among Texas employers in 2013 were strains, sprains, fractures and contusions, according to a recent analysis of Travelers’ 2013 workers’ compensation claim...
Betts To Lead Insurance Council Of Texas
Mar 7 2014 // Albert Betts will become executive director of the Insurance Council of Texas on April 1. Betts, who had served as general counsel to ICT since 2009, will replace Rick Gentry. Gentry is retiring after 17 years as the...
Williams Appointed Texas Regional VP for Patriot National Insurance
Mar 6 2014 // Florida-based workers’ compensation insurance provider, Patriot National Insurance Group Inc., appointed Colin B. Williams as Texas regional vice president. Williams will oversee all marketing and underwriting...
Texas Appeals Court Puts Armstrong Insurance Case Review on Hold
Mar 6 2014 // A Texas appeals court has temporarily blocked an arbitration panel from reviewing $12 million in bonuses paid to Lance Armstrong by a company that wants its money back, stopping efforts to force him to give new sworn...
Mercury Insurance Lowering Auto Insurance Rates in Texas
Mar 5 2014 // Mercury Insurance announced it is reducing auto insurance rates for Texas drivers by an average of 10 percent. The reduction immediately applies to new customers and policy renewals, and will save Mercury policyholders an...
