Latest Texas Headlines

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

Texas Environmental Case Against 7 Petrochemical Plants Resolved

Aug 27 2008 // Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced the resolution of the state’s environmental enforcement action against two Lyondell Chemical Company subsidiaries that operated seven petrochemical plants in Houston and...

Texas Wind Pool Claims Add Up as New Tropical Storm Develops,

Aug 26 2008 // With hurricane season halfway over for 2008, Louisiana has so far dodged the bullet but Texas has taken on two warning shots with Hurricane Dolly and Tropical Storm Edouard. As hurricanes and tropical storms go, neither...

Energy Group Earns $83K Texas Mutual Dividend

Aug 26 2008 // The Lone Star Energy (LSE) workers’ compensation purchasing group has qualified for an $83,503 dividend, Texas Mutual Insurance Company reported. The dividend was based largely on the group’s premium volume and...

State Farm Handed Win in Texas Rate Dispute Case

Aug 25 2008 // A state appeals court ruled Aug. 22 that Texas insurance regulators did not have the authority to issue a disciplinary order against State Farm Lloyds, the state’s largest home insurer, for charging rates it had...

Texas Work Related Death Toll Rose in 2007

Aug 25 2008 // Bucking the national trend toward lower work related deaths, Texas work related fatalities rose to 527 in 2007, an 8 percent increase over 2006, according to the Texas Department of Insurance.The state also saw a 56...

Texas Company Fined $149K for Health and Safety Violations

Aug 22 2008 // The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has proposed $149,100 in fines to Texas Linen Co. Ltd. in Austin, Texas, for one willful, 43 alleged serious and one...

State Farm, Allstate Raising Auto Rates in Texas

Aug 21 2008 // Allstate and State Farm, two of the largest auto insurers in Texas, are raising their rates, saying the boost is needed to offset a rising number of claims.In filings with the Texas Department of Insurance, State Farm...

Sunset Report Says Texas Homebuilder Agency Should Go

Aug 21 2008 // The Texas Residential Construction Commission should be abolished because it is ineffective and frustrates homeowners trying to get builders to address defects in their homes, according to a state agency review.Created in...

America’s Safest Drivers Travel the Roads in America’s Heartland

Aug 21 2008 // Residents in Sioux Falls, S.D., continued to top the chart as the safest drivers in the U.S., according to the fourth annual Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report.The average driver in Sioux Falls experiences an...

State Ranking In Number of Events

Aug 21 2008 // F5 Tornado damage in Parkersburg, Iowa, May 25, 2008.Tornado damage, Windsor, Colo. Prior to 1990, the average number of tornadoes per year in the Continental US was 772. In the period from 1990 through 2007, the average...

Tornado Threats Loom Large as Flood Waters Recede

Aug 21 2008 // Kansas had 1,616 tornadoes, 11 of them were F4 tornadoes and nine were categorized as F5. … The number of tornadoes reported has gone up over 50 percent.Much has been written in the last six weeks about the 2008...

Texas High Court: Contractor Not at Fault in Jail Death

Aug 21 2008 // The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the descendents of a man who was found hanged with a telephone cord in a jail cell have no standing to recover damages from the contractor that supplied the telephone.In JCW...

Cindy Downs

Aug 21 2008 // Dallas-based wholesale insurance broker and managing general agent Towerstone Inc. has added four new members to its team.Cindy Downs was added as a senior underwriter in the firm’s MGA unit. Downs formerly was a...

TSLA President Says Sharing Knowledge Is Just One of Many Membership Perks

Aug 21 2008 // Lana Parks says her managing general agency, The Parks Group, bought a new computer system after a fellow member of the Texas Surplus Lines Association shared with her their experience and knowledge of the system....

The Old Switcheroo

Aug 21 2008 // Declarations“[W]ith Oklahoma City having a higher metropolitan population, I thought it would have been the other way around.” – Officer Craig Murray of the Tulsa Police Department. A recent report showed...

Business Moves

Aug 21 2008 // Woodlands Financial, Austin IndemnityThe Woodlands Financial Group (TWFG) will acquire the renewal rights of the personal lines homeowners business of Austin Indemnity Lloyds Insurance Company (AILIC), effective Aug. 15,...

Colorado Ranks High on Tornado Charts

Aug 21 2008 // Tornadoes are usually classified using the Fujita Tornado Scale, or FScale developed by Dr. T. Theodore Fujita at the University of Chicago in 1971, CDS said. Using FScale classifications, the study looked at whether there...

New Markets

Aug 21 2008 // New MarketsThe following markets were selected from the MyNewMarkets database of 25,000 coverages and programs. To find additional markets, or to submit markets, go to www.MyNewMarkets.com. Builders Risk and Affiliated...

Allstate Targets Texas’ Uninsured Drivers

Aug 20 2008 // Allstate has launched Allstate Blue in Texas, an insurance product aimed at uninsured drivers. The company said Allstate Blue is its seventh statewide product launch in 11 months.It has been estimated that as many as one...

Flooding Recedes in South Texas After Foot of Rain

Aug 20 2008 // The main highway in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley was open to traffic again Aug. 19 as flooding receded following a deluge of up to 13 inches of rain across southern Texas.The torrential rain flooded an estimated 750...