Latest Texas Headlines
All the headlines from our Texas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
People
Jan 23 2012 // Swantner & Gordon Insurance Agency has added Thomas Peel in the marketing department of the firm’s Houston office. As a marketing representative, Peel will be responsible for analyzing and placing risk with...
Business Moves
Jan 23 2012 // PURE Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange (PURE), which offers customized property and casualty insurance coverage to owners of well-built, high-value homes, is expanding into Louisiana. Current agency partners in...
Texas Tornadoes Hit Homes, Mall
Jan 23 2012 // Forecasters say two tornados hit the Houston area during early January thunderstorms that flooded roads and knocked out power. The National Weather Service said a tornado with 95 mph winds touched down on Jan. 9 in Mission...
Johnson & Johnson Settles Texas Lawsuit for $158M
Jan 20 2012 // A lawsuit in which Texas accused Johnson & Johnson of plundering the state Medicaid program by overstating the safety of an expensive anti-psychotic drug and improperly influencing officials and doctors to push the...
Texas-Based CAA Sees Nearly 20% Premium Growth in Q3 2011
Jan 20 2012 // Combined Agents of America LLC (CAA), headquartered in Austin, Texas, reported 19.5 percent growth in written property/casualty premiums in the third quarter of 2011, compared with the same period in 2010. CAA, whose 47...
Texas Ranks Low in Study of Building Codes; Louisiana Fares Better
Jan 20 2012 // That Texas ranked among the bottom three states in a recently released analysis of residential building codes in the 18 hurricane-prone coastal states does not sit well with the state’s insurance regulators. In the...
Texas School Bus Crash Sends 32 to Hospital
Jan 19 2012 // A tractor-trailer clipped a school bus full of students on Jan. 17, flipping the bus onto its side and sending 32 people — 29 of them children — to a central Texas hospital. Police said a 9-year-old boy was ejected...
Damaging Citrus Plant Disease Confirmed in Texas
Jan 19 2012 // State agriculture officials say a destructive citrus plant disease that has wiped out crops in Florida has been confirmed in Texas. The Texas Department of Agriculture on Jan. 18 announced that a section of Hidalgo County...
Texas-Based Tile Manufacturer Fined $318K for Safety Violations
Jan 19 2012 // Federal officials have cited a Sunnyvale, Texas-based tile manufacturer for safety violations and proposed $318,000 in penalties. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited...
Houston Man Pleads Guilty to Hiding Payroll from Texas Mutual
Jan 19 2012 // Texas Mutual Insurance Co. reported Marvin Solano of Houston has pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation fraud-related charges. A Travis County district court ordered Solano to pay $140,038 to Texas Mutual, pay a...
Texas Windstorm Insurer Names New Controller and VP of Claims
Jan 18 2012 // The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) recently named Pete Gise as controller and David Williams as vice president of claims. As controller, Gise manages financial reporting, accounts receivable processing and...
Helin Named President of Southwestern Insurance Information Service
Jan 16 2012 // The board of Southwestern Insurance Information Service has elected Sandra Helin as president of the organization effective March 1. Helin will succeed Jerry Johns who will be retiring March 1, 2012. A 13-year veteran of...
R-T Specialty Acquires Texas Insurance Wholesaler Maclean, Oddy & Associates
Jan 12 2012 // R-T Specialty LLC, the wholesale broker of Ryan Specialty Group LLC, has acquired Texas-based insurance wholesale firm Maclean, Oddy & Associates Inc. (MOA). MOA is a specialist broker for unusual property and casualty...
State Funding Cuts Hurt Texas Volunteer Fire Departments
Jan 11 2012 // A combination of record drought, epic wildfires, hard economic times and slashed state funding has put added stress on volunteer fire departments in Texas. Chris Barron, executive director of the State Firemen’s and...
RiskMeter.com Adds Texas Wildfire Report to Service
Jan 11 2012 // RiskMeter.com, a provider of real-time natural hazard risk reports, has added a Texas wildfire report to its service. This report will return a property’s proximity to wildfire risk by simply entering an address or...
2012 Brings Operational Changes for Texas Windstorm Insurer
Jan 10 2012 // The New Year ushered in changes to the operation of Texas’s insurance company of last resort for wind and hail along the Texas coast. Many of the operational changes will affect insurance agents who handle Texas...
Texas Governor Renews Drought Disaster Declaration
Jan 9 2012 // Gov. Rick Perry has renewed a proclamation declaring Texas a disaster due to the drought. Perry renewed the proclamation on Dec. 27, a year after he initially declared the drought a disaster. The proclamation allows...
Texas Insurer Acquires Florida’s Physicians Insurance
Jan 9 2012 // The Texas Medical Liability Trust has acquired the Florida-based Physicians Insurance Co. The Deerfield Beach, Florida-based Physicians Insurance has been operating in the state since 2003. According to a 2011 Office of...
Declarations
Jan 9 2012 // No Single Answer “Distracted driving is a serious problem and in our increasingly mobile world, it is becoming the norm. As we have seen with other motor safety issues such as seatbelt use and drunk driving, there is...
2012 Brings Operational Changes for TWIA
Jan 9 2012 // The New Year is ushering in changes to the operation of the insurer of last resort for wind and hail along the Texas coast. Many of the operational changes will affect insurance agents who handle Texas Windstorm Insurance...
