Latest Texas Headlines

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

Higginbotham, Capps Insurance Agency Merge

Mar 25 2016 // Independent insurance broker Higginbotham, headquartered in Fort Worth, and Mount Pleasant, Texas-based Capps Insurance Agency have joined forces. Higginbotham’s partnership with Capps brings its total number of...

Hailstorms Pummel North Texas, Again

Mar 24 2016 // Large hail and strong winds caused considerable damage in heavily populated areas of north Texas overnight on March 23. It was the second time just over a week that the area has been pummeled by hail. Car windows and sky...

Texas Regulators: Mid-March Hail Storm Was Insurance ‘Catastrophe’

Mar 24 2016 // The Texas Department of Insurance has determined the weather-related event that occurred March 16, 2016, through March 17, 2016, in the counties of Dallas, Tarrant, Johnson, and Parker is a catastrophe for the purpose of...

Federal Appeals Court Sides with Lexington Insurance in Deductible Dispute

Mar 23 2016 // A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling in favor of an insurance company in a breach of contract suit brought by a Houston-based oil and gas exploration and production company. The dispute in...

Texas Seeks Data on Weather-Related Property Claims, Lawsuits

Mar 23 2016 // The Senate Business and Commerce and the House Insurance Committees of the Texas Legislature have requested data from the Texas Department of Insurance related to weather-related property claims, the incidence of lawsuits...

Update: With Property Claims Added, North Texas Hail Damage May Reach $600M

Mar 23 2016 // An insurer trade group says it estimates that damage caused by hailstorms that rolled through the Fort Worth area last week will reach $600 million in auto and property claims. Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance...

Southeast Texas Floods Bring Federal Disaster Declaration

Mar 22 2016 // President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in three Texas counties following severe storms including tornadoes and flooding earlier this month. The declaration covers Jasper, Newton and Orange counties in...

Hail Damage in North Texas Could Cost $300M in Car Repairs

Mar 22 2016 // Hailstorms that rolled through the Fort Worth, Texas, area last week could result in $300 million in vehicle repairs. Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas, estimated that 50,000 vehicles were damaged...

Affirmative Insurance Liquidation Hearing Set for March 24 in Illinois

Mar 22 2016 // On March 1, 2016, Affirmative Insurance Co. was declared insolvent by at least $31 million by Acting Illinois Insurance Director Anne Melissa Dowling, who filed with the Illinois Supervising Court a Complaint for...

Texas Seeking Employer Representative for Workers’ Comp Appeals Panel

Mar 21 2016 // The Texas Department of Insurance is seeking an employer representative to serve on the Texas Workers’ Compensation Appeals Panel. The panel resolves policyholder disputes with insurance carriers that are referred by...

Storms Set Oil Field Equipment on Fire Near Houston

Mar 21 2016 // Lingering thunderstorms were blamed for a fire that damaged an oil field equipment site on March 19 near Houston and power outages in South Texas that left more than 50,000 homes and businesses without...

Despite Energy Job Losses, South Central States Report Some Employment Gains

Mar 21 2016 // While oil and gas industry job losses had an impact in the South Central states over the last year, Arkansas, Louisiana Oklahoma and Texas still saw decreases in unemployment rates in 2015. Year-over-year from 2014 to...

People – South Central

Mar 21 2016 // Texas-based LevelFirst, the wholesale broker and MGA binding facility owned by IIAT Services Co., has appointed Heath McCasland as vice president. McCasland will assume the responsibility of brokering new business...

Flooded Interstate 10 in Southeast Texas to Remain Closed for Days

Mar 18 2016 // Highway officials say flooded Interstate 10 in Southeast Texas will stay closed through the weekend. Transportation officials closed the eastbound lanes early on March 15 as rising waters from excessive rains flooded the...

Dallas Jury Orders Johnson & Johnson to Pay $500M in Hip Implants Case

Mar 18 2016 // Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $502 million to a group of patients who accused the company of hiding flaws in its Pinnacle artificial hips that caused the devices to prematurely fail and left them facing...

North Texas Commuters Hit with Damaging Hailstorms

Mar 17 2016 // Severe thunderstorms moved in and around the Dallas/Fort Worth area this morning producing heavy rain, strong winds and hail as large as baseballs, the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) reported. Several businesses...

Rising Rivers, Bayous Force Texas Evacuations

Mar 17 2016 // Residents were evacuating their homes in Southeast Texas on March 15 as rivers swollen by days of heavy rain displaced thousands of people, forced the temporary closure of a major interstate and overwhelmed small towns...

NFI Roadrail and NFI Industries Settle Texas Wage Discrimination Suit

Mar 16 2016 // Federal officials say two New Jersey-based companies has settled a suit over unequal pay at a workplace in Texas. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported that NFI RoadRail LLC and NFI Industries...

Seat-Back Failure Leads to $124.5M Texas Verdict Against Audi

Mar 16 2016 // A Texas jury ordered Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit to pay $124.5 million to an 11-year-old boy who was left brain damaged in a 2012 rear-end collision. The parents of Jesse Rivera Jr. claimed the seat back of the 2005...

Texas Seeks Comments on Windstorm Inspection Rule

Mar 10 2016 // The Texas Department of Insurance is seeking comments on an informal working draft of amendments that would update the rule relating to items not requiring inspection for the purposes of windstorm and hail insurance...