Latest Texas Headlines
All the headlines from our Texas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Governor Appoints Sullivan as Texas’ New Insurance Commissioner
Oct 2 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...
Texas A&M Professor Thinks Web Tool Can Help Coastal Texans Assess Flood Risk
Sep 29 2017 // When Sam Brody and his wife were shopping for a new home in Houston six months ago, they had very different priorities. Brody, a researcher who analyzes ways to minimize the impact of natural disasters, was focused on the...
Houston Mayor, Texas Governor Battle Over Harvey Costs
Sep 29 2017 // A clash over Houston’s mounting expenses from Hurricane Harvey escalated on Sept. 25 when Gov. Greg Abbott accused the mayor of holding the state “hostage” by pushing a local tax increase unless an...
Despite Rise in Catastrophe Losses, Home Insurance Loss Costs Declined in Recent Years
Sep 28 2017 // In 2016, Colorado and Texas homeowners suffered the greatest percentage of catastrophic losses due to extreme weather and other perils, according to a study of home insurance trends. The six-year LexisNexis Risk Solutions...
Texas Homeowners Say They Weren’t Warned about Flooding Risks
Sep 28 2017 // More than 20 years before Hurricane Harvey, officials in suburban Houston were aware that a heavy storm could cause a reservoir to overflow and inundate nearby homes with water. So they issued a warning to potential home...
Texas Regulators Seek Data on Insurers’ Hurricane Harvey Claims
Sep 27 2017 // The Texas Department of Insurance has issued a mandatory data call to both admitted and surplus lines insurance carriers seeking information about Hurricane Harvey-related claims in 62 counties impacted by the storm. The...
Texas Sets Annual Workers’ Compensation Weekly Benefit Wage
Sep 27 2017 // The workers’ compensation state average weekly wage for dates of injury from Oct. 1, 2017, through Sept. 30, 2018, is set at $913.37, the Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation announced. The maximum weekly...
FEMA Statement on Texas Toxic Sites Clarified by EPA
Sep 26 2017 // The Environmental Protection Agency said on Sept. 24 it has recovered 517 containers filled with unidentified, potentially hazardous material found floating in or washed up along Texas waterways after the devastating...
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...
