Latest Texas Headlines
All the headlines from our Texas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Dollar General Fined Nearly $163K for Texas Worksite Hazards
Jan 5 2016 // Dollar General Corp., headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tenn., has been fined by federal safety officials over workplace safety and health hazards at its store in Sherman, Texas. Proposed penalties total $162,800. The U.S....
Hillshire Brands to Pay $4M to Settle Texas Race Discrimination Suit
Jan 5 2016 // Hillshire Brands Company (formerly known as the Sara Lee Corp.) will pay $4 million to a group of 74 African-American former employees who had worked at a former Sara Lee facility in Paris, Texas, to settle a race...
CoVerica Opens New Branch Office in Tyler, Texas
Jan 4 2016 // Dallas-based independent insurance agency, CoVerica Inc., has opened a new branch location in Tyler, Texas. Keith Nail is Tyler’s branch president and Tyler resident. Nail holds the CIC designation and specializes in...
Repairs to Hazardous Lewisville Lake Dam in Texas Likely Delayed
Jan 4 2016 // Rising water levels will likely delay repairs to a 160-foot-long landslide along the Lewisville Lake dam, a possible threat to the hundreds of thousands of North Texans who live downstream. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers...
Farmers Insurance Launches Rideshare Insurance Coverage in Texas
Jan 4 2016 // Farmers Insurance has introduced its new Rideshare Insurance Coverage endorsement designed to provide coverage options for ride-hailing drivers in Texas. Farmers said it worked with representatives of the Texas Department...
‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’ Sums Up South Central News in 2015
Dec 30 2015 // If you scan the song/album list of the late, great Texas blues guitar powerhouse, Stevie Ray Vaughan, you’ll get an inkling of what the major stories from Insurance Journal’s South Central region in 2015 were...
Insured Loss Estimate from Texas Tornadoes at $1.2B, So Far
Dec 30 2015 // Texas is dealing with approximately $1.2 billion in insured losses so far from nine confirmed tornadoes that struck the metro-Dallas area on Dec. 26 and killed 11 people, according to preliminary estimates from the...
Officials: ‘Affluenza’ Teen, Mother Fled to Mexico, now Detained
Dec 30 2015 // A Texas sheriff said an arrest warrant will be issued for a Texas woman who was found with her son in Mexico, a teenager on probation after killing four people in a drunken-driving wreck and invoking an...
Robert C. Quirk of San Antonio-Based Quirk & Co. Passes
Dec 30 2015 // San Antonio, Texas-based wholesale insurance broker, Quirk & Company, announced the passing of its president and CEO for the past 41 years, Robert (Bob) C. Quirk. Born in 1946, Quirk graduated from the University of...
Texas’ ‘King of Torts,’ Joe Jamail, Dies at 90
Dec 29 2015 // Joe Jamail, the Texas billionaire who became the richest practicing attorney in the U.S. after winning jury verdicts in civil lawsuits that included a $10.5 billion award for Pennzoil Co. in its landmark case against...
Texas Tornadoes, Midwest Flooding Leave at Least 24 Dead
Dec 29 2015 // At least 11 people died and dozens were injured in strong tornadoes that swept through the Dallas area and caused substantial damage this weekend, while 13 people died in flooding in the Midwest. It was the latest of a...
AIR Worldwide: At Least 9 Tornadoes in North Texas; Extent of Damage Not Yet Known
Dec 29 2015 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide reported that the huge storm system that impacted the United States from New Mexico to Michigan and Georgia over the Christmas holiday weekend delivered at least nine tornadoes in...
Texas Storms That Spawned Tornadoes Kill at Least 11
Dec 28 2015 // Tornadoes that swept through the Dallas, Texas area caused substantial damage and at least 11 people died either from the storm or related traffic accidents and dozens of people were injured. It’s the latest of a...
Texas Man Who Drove Car into Gulf Sentenced For Insurance Fraud
Dec 23 2015 // An exotic car salvage yard owner in Lufkin, Texas has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison after pleading guilty to insurance fraud. The Houston Chronicle reported that in November 2009, Andy House drove...
More than $1B in Fed Disaster Funds for Texas Unspent Since Dolly, Ike
Dec 23 2015 // More than a third of the $3 billion in federal disaster recovery funds available for Texas after 2008 hurricanes Ike and Dolly remains unspent, as legislators prepare for hearings on how to speed up the process. Several...
Texas Repeals Retrospective Workers’ Comp Rating Plan Manual
Dec 23 2015 // The Texas Department of Insurance has issued an order to repeal the rules, factors, values, endorsements, and forms in the Texas Retrospective Rating Plan Manual (Texas Retro Plan) for new and renewal workers’...
Fatal Auto Pedestrian Accidents on the Rise in Texas
Dec 22 2015 // The number of fatal auto pedestrian accidents in Texas has risen 36 percent since the Texas Department of Transportation began keeping the records in 2010, recently released National Highway Traffic Safety Administration...
People – South Central
Dec 21 2015 // The Texas Surplus Lines Association Inc. has elected new officers and directors, including President Shawn Fabors, managing director, AmWINS Program Underwriters Inc. in Dallas. He takes over from outgoing President Penny...
Texas State Fire Marshal: Fire Occurred Every 7 Minutes in 2014
Dec 21 2015 // A fire occurred every seven minutes in 2014 in Texas, state fire officials say. A report released by the State Fire Marshal’s Office, shows that last year, 957 fire departments in Texas reported 72,124 fires, an...
The Charity Issue
Dec 21 2015 // Gillis, Ellis & Baker Employees of Gillis, Ellis & Baker Insurance (GEB) spent a recent weekend fixing up the exterior of the Gentilly home of Eleonor Sheppard. The GEB team repaired siding, painted the...
