Texas Auto Insurance
Auto insurance protects you from damage to the often considerable investment in a car and/or from liability for damage or injury caused by you or someone driving your vehicle. It can also help cover expenses you or anyone in your car may incur as a result of an accident with an uninsured motorist.

Auto liability coverage is necessary for anyone who owns a car. Texas requires you to have liability insurance before a vehicle can be registered. However, state-required minimum coverage often does not provide adequate protection. Suggested minimums are $100,000 for medical expenses per injured person, $300,000 for the total per accident, and $50,000 for property damage.* Collision, fire, and theft coverage is also advisable for a vehicle having more than minimal value.

The cost of auto insurance varies greatly, depending on the company and agent offering it, your choice of coverage and deductible, where you live, the kind of vehicle, and the ages of drivers in the family. Substantial discounts are often available for safe drivers, nonsmokers, and those who commute to work via public transportation.

Homeowner's Insurance Texas
Homeowner's insurance should allow you to rebuild and refurnish your home after a catastrophe and insulate you from the potential cost of lawsuits if someone is injured on your property. Coverage of at least 80% of your home's replacement value, minus the value of land and foundation, is necessary for you to be covered for the cost of repairs. There are several grades of policies, ranging from HO-1 to HO-8, with increasingly comprehensive coverage and cost. Unless you increase coverage, most homeowner's policies cover the contents of the house for 50% to 75% of the amount for which the house is insured. The liability coverage in many homeowner's policies is $300,000.

Texas Liability Insurance
Often called umbrella liability coverage, this takes effect when the personal liability and lawsuit coverage in other policies is exhausted. The cost for $1 million worth of protection — especially necessary for high-income individuals and those with considerable assets — may be only a few hundred dollars a year.

Today, a number of insurance companies are again no longer writing workers’ compensation insurance in Texas, or are cutting back, but the underlying reasons are different. The Legislature took major steps to reform the worker’s compensation system in 1989 to bring system costs under control. Those reforms took effect in 1991 and ultimately were upheld by the Texas Supreme Court in 1995. After that, intense competition, indeed sometimes irresponsible competition, returned to Texas in the mid- and late 1990’s. Texas businesses saw their workers’ compensation insurance premiums drop dramatically.

What Are Your Insurance Needs?
The insurance decisions you make should be based on your family, age, and economic situation. There are many forms of insurance and, unfortunately, no one-size-fits-all policy. Life insurance, for example, is a virtual necessity if you have a spouse and children, but perhaps is less important for a single person. Disability insurance, which provides an income stream if you are unable to work due to accident or sickness, is important for everyone.