Insurance Rates in Texas
Texans know first-hand how impressive and ruthless mother nature is. Almost any Texan can tell a harrowing tale of a flood, hurricane, tornado, ice storm, hail storm or snow storm. What's better than them living to tell about it is the opportunity to be better prepared in the future.
The State of Texas Department of Insurance has prepared many guides for its residents, including, how to make a good kit and a communication plan and how much auto insurance to buy.
Be sure to compare quotes using the FREE search tool above!
Fine-tuning Homeowners Insurance
The best place to start is with financial preparation to ensure you have resources to rebuild houses, repair cars and rebuild your life following a catastrophe, death of a primary breadwinner or in the aftermath of an auto accident.
If you have a mortgage you are required to have a homeowners insurance policy. Otherwise, there is nothing forcing you to buy it. If you have the money to fully rebuild your house and purchase all new possessions out of pocket, go for it.
In all seriousness, it makes financial sense to pay a bit of money every year to get insurance. If you buy a homeowners policy with a higher deductible, which makes sense because you only file claims for catastrophic events, someone else is on the line to pay to rebuild your house or your possessions.
The key is to find out how much your home costs to rebuild this day and age. Hire a contractor and a house appraiser to determine that amount. Buy that much coverage for your structure.
For belongings, you will need to complete a household inventory of all of your possessions. Keep it offsite and include receipts, dates purchased and serial numbers. This is your key to knowing how much insurance to buy for your personal belongings.
In addition, it is an excellent record to prove to insurers how much in damages you are claiming following a loss.
Basics of Texas Vehicle Coverage
If you are in Texas, chances are you have another big expense -- your car. You probably spend a lot of time driving around in it too. That increases the chances of accidents, theft, burglary and injuries. The way to fend off huge lawsuits that prey on your financial backbone is to be properly insured.
In Texas, the minimum liability insurance you need to have is 30,000 dollars per injured person, with a maximum of 60,000 dollars per accident. Property damage minimum requirements are 25,000 per accident. On a policy, liability insurance appears as 30/60/25 coverage.
Liability pays out if you injure other drivers, their passengers or their vehicles.
Now think of how costly medical care and cars are. If you have the state minimum required insurance, you are underinsured. The reason is your liability insurance would likely not cover another driver's costs to repair their vehicle or get medical treatment for serious injuries.
To protect yourself, your car and your passengers from injury, death or damage caused by other drivers, buy other aspects of vehicle insurance. For instance, include medical payments, comprehensive and collision in your insurance quotes.
Comprehensive is coverage for your vehicle and includes items stolen out of your car, burglaries, theft and any damages not sustained in a collision, or accident.
If you are in an accident, you need to be able to afford the deductibles every time you make a claim. Consider how much deductible you can afford to pay every time you are involved in an accident or every time your car gets robbed. Consider adding a security system and alarm to your vehicle to reduce premiums. In addition, improving your driving skills by taking safe driving class will often reduce premiums as well.
Having a garage to park your car, rather than on-street parking also reduces rates. Living in a safe neighborhood helps pacify rates too. Of course enjoying a years-long period without any insurance claims will also go a long way to softening vehicle insurance costs.
Consequences of Forgoing Coverage
In Texas, like all other states, vehicle insurance is required. Basically, the proof of insurance is your insurance card, which your insurance company sends you when you buy your policy. In the following situations you need to be prepared to show your card:
- Police officer asks for it.
- In an accident.
- Register or renew your car or driver's license.
- Get your car inspected.
Know the Consequences
There are actually fines for not having proof of coverage. It's worth carrying cards in your wallet, purse and in your car. Make sure your covered drivers all have their insurance cards handy too.
The fines start with a first offense of anywhere from 175 to 350 dollars. The second offense is 350 to 1,000 dollars. The authorities may suspend your driver's license and impound your car even following a second offense of driving without proof of coverage.
If you are caught committing a traffic violation or involved in an accident without your driver's license there is a 2,000 dollar maximum fine, 180 day jail time or both. If you cause serious injuries or kill someone and do not have your license, the fine is 4,000 dollars maximum, one whole year in jail or both.
Life Insurance Basics
When it's time to buy vehicle and homeowners insurance, looking at life insurance makes sense. For one, if you buy multiple insurance policies from one carrier, you may receive a discount. Another reason to buy all policies at the same time is it is more efficient to shop for and pay for insurance all at one time.
More so, when you review homeowners and vehicle insurance, you may start thinking about life and death and keeping your family taken care of if you or your spouse pass prematurely. Many people are skipping life insurance. That is fine unless you can replace the income your dependents need to survive from other sources, such as savings.
Term life insurance is the least expensive of all types of life insurance. It pays out the face value of the policy tax free. That means, if you buy a 15-year term life 500,000 dollar insurance policy, your designated beneficiaries will receive 500,000 dollars.
It is worth mentioning that insurance companies try to market all kinds of other benefits, such as separate funeral cost or mortgage protection insurance with life insurance. The best bet is to buy plenty of term life insurance and designate how to spend the money in a will or living trust.
The other products are much more costly. If you are wondering, mortgage protection insurance simply pays off the mortgage if the policy holder passes away. It sounds like a great product, until you price it out against the same amount of coverage under term life insurance.
Be sure that the beneficiaries of the policyholder know there is a life insurance policy.
Otherwise, insurance companies will not necessarily seek out the rightful recipients, but an estate lawyer you hire, will.
Compare Quotes
If you are seeking insurance, compare quotes to save the most money and time. The key is to use the rest of this guide to decide what you want out of your policy. Calculate how much insurance to buy and only consider the quotes that provide such coverage.
From there, evaluate the insurance companies you are considering. They need to be financially solvent to pay out insurance claims into the future. Check out creditworthiness of the insurance companies online. Also look at customer feedback about efficiency and effectiveness of insurers in the claims process.
The point of having insurance is to have claims processed quickly and paid out as agreed. Some insurance companies drag customers along, sending out multiple claims adjusters, waste time and then try to avoid paying the claims. Some will only pay partial of what they honestly are obligated to pay.
Look for happy customers whose claims experience is like this:
- Adjuster arrives promptly following accident or incident
- Customer service is friendly, approachable and reachable all hours of the day or night
- Claims are processed quickly
- Claims are paid out efficiently
Now that you are keeping the insurance companies honest, make sure you work from a place of integrity as well. If you make a fake claim or exaggerate your losses you are making everyone's insurance rates skyrocket. In addition, if you are found out, your insurance company will cancel your insurance and you probably will be unable to buy insurance again.
Buying insurance is one way to secure yourself and your family in the event of unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances. Life, auto and homeowners insurance each cover different aspects of your life against the havoc of accidents and mother nature.
Buy wisely and make sure you are insured. Use the FREE comparison tool below to get started!