Latest Texas Headlines
All the headlines from our Texas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Note to Texas, Florida: Insurance Fights Over Sandy Rage On
Sep 25 2017 // The destructive floodwaters of Superstorm Sandy receded quickly, but some storm victims are still neck-deep in a battle over insurance payouts. And many victims of this year’s storms in Texas, Florida and elsewhere...
EPA Won’t Say Which Texas Sites Toxic Waste Has Been Removed From After Harvey
Sep 24 2017 // The Environmental Protection Agency says it has recovered 517 containers of “unidentified, potentially hazardous material” from highly contaminated toxic waste sites in Texas that flooded last month during...
Jump in Energy Contract Lawsuits Expected in Harvey’s Wake
Sep 22 2017 // Lawyers expect a spate of force majeure contract lawsuits after Hurricane Harvey tore through Southeast Texas and parts of Louisiana last month, paralyzing a fifth of U.S. fuel output and pushing some oil production...
Researchers: FEMA’s Houston Flood Maps Outdated Long Before Harvey
Sep 22 2017 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood plain maps for parts of southeastern Houston were woefully out-of-date long before Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Texas coast, a new study suggests. Researchers at Rice...
Sullivan Appointed as Texas Insurance Commissioner
Sep 22 2017 // Texas has a new insurance commissioner. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has named Kent Sullivan to serve as insurance commissioner and head of the Texas Department of Insurance. His term expires Feb. 1, 2019. The post has been...
Texans Helping Texans: Independent MGAs Join Forces for Targeted Harvey Relief
Sep 21 2017 // A group of independently owned Texas managing general agents (MGAs) have come together to provide targeted, direct, local relief to communities affected by Hurricane Harvey. Texas MGAs for Disaster Relief is working with...
Air Monitoring Company Added to Texas Chemical Plant Negligence Lawsuit
Sep 21 2017 // Air monitoring company Bureau Veritas SA has been added to a negligence suit alleging first responders inhaled dangerous fumes during a fire at a chemical plant, lawyers for Texas police and emergency workers said. The...
States Need Better Protections for Insurance Consumers in Natural Disasters: Rutgers Report
Sep 21 2017 // As homeowners continue to file insurance claims in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, a research report released by the Rutgers Center for Risk and Responsibility at the Rutgers Law School in Camden, N.J., suggests...
FEMA Not Relying on Trailers to House Hurricane Victims
Sep 20 2017 // The hurricanes that battered Texas and Florida have likely spawned the worst disaster-created housing crisis since Hurricane Katrina left hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents without homes more than a decade...
Sunderman Appointed President of Hotchkiss Insurance Programs
Sep 18 2017 // Hotchkiss Insurance Programs LLC, based in Dallas, has appointed Timothy Sunderman as president. He will assume operational responsibility and will report to Michael Hotchkiss, the company’s chief executive officer....
‘Future-Proofing’ Texas a Political, Bureaucratic Challenge for Harvey Recovery Czar
Sep 18 2017 // The man tasked with overseeing Texas’ Hurricane Harvey rebuilding efforts sees his job as “future-proofing” before the next disaster, but he isn’t empowered on his own to reshape flood-prone Houston...
Hurricane Harvey-Caused Oil, Chemical Spills Dwarfed by Katrina’s
Sep 18 2017 // More than 22,000 barrels of oil, refined fuels and chemicals spilled at sites across Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, along with millions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of tons of other toxic substances, a...
Linhardt Named Regions Insurance’s State Exec for Arkansas, Texas
Sep 18 2017 // Regions Insurance, an affiliate of Regions Bank, has hired David Linhardt as state executive for Arkansas and Texas. As state executive, Linhardt will oversee Regions Insurance operations in the Little Rock, Fayetteville...
Some Insurance Adjusters Camping Out in Texas after Harvey
Sep 18 2017 // To process tens of thousands of auto and property claims with losses already well into the billions of dollars, insurance companies have adjusters camping out across Texas. The Houston Chronicle reports in one case, the...
Hey Congress, Hurricanes and Health Care Have a Lot in Common: Bloomberg View
Sep 18 2017 // As Congress continues to struggle with health insurance reform, members should be ruminating on the scenes of “recovery” beaming in from East Texas and Florida, where the majority of households — many now...
Firms Hit by Harvey, Irma Hope Business Interruption Coverage Pays Off
Sep 18 2017 // Business owners who are trying to get back on track after hurricanes Harvey and Irma now face a different sort of challenge: trying to recoup lost income from their insurers. Exclusions in the fine print of policies, along...
People
Sep 18 2017 // Dallas-based insurance and risk management firm Dexter & Company has added Jeff Twitty to its team as senior vice president and promoted Stephen Bivins to vice president. A seasoned insurance professional with more...
Mixed Messages Sent Over Texas’s New Cat Claims Statute
Sep 18 2017 // Ambiguity surrounding a Texas law that went into effect on Sept. 1 had insurance industry representatives and attorneys who represent insurance policyholders issuing conflicting messages to insureds who may have suffered...
6 Tips to Consider in a Post-Harvey and Irma Homebuilding Market
Sep 18 2017 // The images of familiar places underwater in South Texas and Floria haunt us. The spirit of volunteers risking their lives to help strangers emboldens us. But those in the home building insurance industry naturally start to...
ICT Pegs Hurricane Harvey Insured Losses at $19B
Sep 15 2017 // The Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) has placed the insured losses from Hurricane Harvey at $19 billion. That number includes an estimated $11 billion in flood losses insured by the National Flood Insurance...
