Latest Texas Headlines

All the headlines from our Texas Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Texas Mutual: Man Earned $10K a Week While Receiving Benefits

Nov 16 2007 // Texas Mutual Insurance Company reported that the 331st Travis County District Court sentenced Richard Brooks of Buna on workers’ compensation fraud-related charges. Brooks must serve five years’ deferred...

GAINSCO Rolls Out Monthly Auto Policy in Texas

Nov 15 2007 // GAINSCO Auto Insurance, which specializes in minimum-limits personal auto policies, announced it has introduced a new monthly auto policy for Texas customers. The new product, which provides a single month of personal auto...

Texas Insurer Group Awards Scholarships to 15 Students

Nov 15 2007 // The Education Foundation of the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) has awarded academic scholarships to 15 students at Baylor University, the University of North Texas and the University of Texas at Austin, the insurer trade...

State Auto Exec. to Discuss Texas Market at Dallas All-Industry Day

Nov 15 2007 // Columbus, Ohio-based State Auto Insurance Companies Executive Vice President and COO Mark Blackburn will offer his view of Texas, the nation’s third-largest property and casualty market, at the 2007 Dallas...

Texas Construction Company Funds Safety Scholarship

Nov 14 2007 // The American Society of Safety Engineers’ (ASSE) Region III, which encompasses Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, announced that Austin, Texas-based McComb Construction Company donated $4,000 toward the establishment of a...

Texas Physicians Group: New Comp Rules Benefit Workers

Nov 13 2007 // New rules proposed by the Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers’ Compensation will help injured workers in finding and receiving care from a physician, according to the Texas Medical Association. Among...

Sign Industry Group Open to all Licensed Texas Agents

Nov 12 2007 // Texas Mutual Insurance Company reported that the Texas Sign Association (TSA) purchasing group, TSA Comp Group Inc., is now open group. Qualifying on-premise sign product manufacturers, sign supply distributors and...

Texas Work Comp Treatment Planning Pilot Project Launched

Nov 9 2007 // Several Texas workers’ compensation insurance carriers are participating in a pilot project with health care providers to initiate treatment planning for workers’ compensation injuries, according to the Texas...

Texas Mutual Distributes $2M in Dividends to First-Year Policyholders

Nov 8 2007 // Texas Mutual Insurance Company announced it is distributing approximately $2 million in dividends among first-year policyholders with favorable loss ratios. The dividends represent the final component of the...

State Audit: Texas Slow in Delivering Federal Aid to Hurricane Victims

Nov 5 2007 // Texas has used only 2 percent of more than $500 million in federal aid for homeowners and communities hit by Hurricane Rita more than two years ago, a state audit found. State Auditor John Keel found that more than 4,000...

People

Nov 4 2007 // Austin, Texas-based Medicus Insurance appointed John Flanagan as its new Regional Market manager for the Midwest. Flanagan will be based in Chicago. Flanagan brings over five years of experience in the professional...

ACE pays $4.5 million to states

Nov 4 2007 // ACE Group Holdings has agreed to pay $4.5 million to end a bid-rigging and price-fixing case, according to state officials. The monies will be divided among eight states and the District of Columbia. Florida’s Chief...

States under cover

Nov 4 2007 // Natural catastrophes — and the affordability and availability of property insurance in disaster-prone areas — have been on center stage in coastal states from the Northeast to the Gulf Coast. This fall, the...

Texas Comp Division Sets Payroll Requirements for Seasonal Workers

Nov 2 2007 // The Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers’ Compensation announced that the adjusted annual payroll requirement of an employer for the coverage of seasonal workers is $46,423. This gross payroll amount...

Insurance Office Worker in Texas Accidentally Shoots His Legs

Nov 1 2007 // A 47-year-old man was shot in both legs when he accidentally discharged a handgun while sitting in his cubicle at an insurance office in Fort Worth, Texas, police said. The man, who hasn’t been publicly identified,...

Texas Sept. Enforcements Result in Nearly $376K in Fines, Restitution

Oct 30 2007 // Enforcement actions taken by Texas Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin that became final during September 2007 include 12 license revocations, three license denials and fines and restitution totaling $375,983, the Texas...

Declarations

Oct 27 2007 // The rules of attraction “The program is an effort to attract more property and casualty providers to our state and to increase the private market capacity by 15 percent.” — Louisiana Commissioner of...

Business Moves

Oct 27 2007 // Watkins Insurance Group Austin, Texas-based independent insurance agency, Watkins Insurance Group, has acquired Matz Insurance Agency of Austin. Established in 2002, Matz offers both commercial and personal lines of...

State Farm’s 9.1% rate hike in Texas rejected

Oct 27 2007 // Two administrative law judges in Texas on Oct. 5 rejected State Farm’s plan to increase homeowner insurance rates, calling the hike too excessive. State Farm Lloyds Inc. had appealed to the State Office of...

8 La.’s $100 million incentive program begins

Oct 27 2007 // State hopes to increase private market property coverage 8 State Farm Texas rate hike denied Administrative law judges say 9.1% is too much 8 Insurance complaints decline in Texas Homeowners line dropped the...