Leakey, TX

Texas requires every driver to carry at least 30/60/25 liability coverage: $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per accident for injuries, and $25,000 for property damage. Your policy also automatically includes Personal Injury Protection, and your carrier must offer Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage. You can decline either one, but only in writing.

The state checks compliance through TexasSure, the verification database operated jointly by the Texas DMV, the Texas Department of Insurance, DPS and DIR. Even with it, roughly one Texas driver in eight was uninsured as of late 2025, which is the practical argument for keeping UM/UIM rather than signing it away.

Are the minimums enough? Usually not. $25,000 of property damage will not replace a late-model truck, and $30,000 per person goes quickly in a hospital. If you own property around Leakey with real equity, a judgment above your limits can reach beyond your policy. We would rather show you what higher limits actually cost, which is often less than people expect, than let a state minimum set your exposure for you.

An independent agency represents many carriers, so we can put the same risk in front of several companies rather than selling the one product we are permitted to sell. That structural difference is why Frio Canyon Insurance Agency can move you when a carrier’s rate or appetite changes, instead of telling you to go shop.

The second difference is who you actually speak to. Many direct writers route you to call-center staff who are not individually licensed to sell insurance; they operate under a single company license. They are trained to issue a policy, not to tell you when your protection is thin. Consider a common example: you own a $150,000 home and carry $50,000 of auto liability because the state requires less still. An at-fault accident with a $200,000 judgment pays $50,000 and leaves $150,000 to you, and your home is an asset a court can look at.

Then there is the claim. A licensed local agent is your advocate with the company at the moment you actually need one. That is the part you cannot buy back afterward.

Usually not on the same policy, and sometimes not on a homeowners form at all. A standard homeowners policy contemplates a residence you occupy. A property that sits empty most of the month is underwritten differently: carriers care about how long it is vacant, whether utilities and water are left on, whether anyone checks on it, and how far it is from a responding fire department.

Real County adds specifics an underwriter will ask about, including response distance, access over caliche roads and low-water crossings, and wildfire exposure in cedar and brush country. Some carriers will write a secondary or seasonal dwelling readily; others will not touch it.

If you rent the place out, even a few weekends a year through a short-term rental platform, that is a different conversation again. A homeowners policy generally excludes business use, and a claim that happens during a paid stay can be denied outright.

Tell us how the property is actually used, honestly, and we will find the form that matches. This is one of those things that otherwise gets discovered at claim time.

Possibly, and it is the kind of claim that gets large quickly. Section II of your homeowners policy, personal liability, is what responds to bodily injury you are legally responsible for, along with a small medical payments coverage that pays regardless of fault. A guest who falls on your steps, a child hurt at the river’s edge, an ATV accident on a ranch road: all potential claims against you.

Two things change the analysis. Texas has a recreational use statute that limits landowner liability in defined circumstances, but it is narrower than people assume and it does not make you immune. And the moment money changes hands, whether a paid hunting lease, a guided trip or a rented cabin, the exposure may stop being personal and become commercial, at which point a homeowners policy may not respond at all.

If anyone pays you for access to the property, tell us. The right answer is usually a modest hunting or farm liability policy sitting alongside the homeowners, not an argument with an adjuster afterward.

Not under a homeowners policy. Damage from rising water is excluded from every standard homeowners form, and in this country that exclusion matters more than most places: the canyon is flash-flood terrain, where a rise can come from rain that fell miles upstream and arrive without much warning. Flood coverage is a separate policy, written through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood carrier, and NFIP policies typically carry a waiting period before they take effect, so this is not something to arrange when rain is forecast.

A property does not have to sit in a mapped high-risk zone to flood. Along a canyon watercourse, proximity to the channel and to low-water crossings often tells you more than the flood map does.

One useful distinction: your vehicle is different. Flood damage to a car or truck is covered by comprehensive coverage on your auto policy, not by flood insurance. If you carry liability only, a vehicle caught in high water is not covered at all.

Yes. Fire is a covered peril on every standard homeowners policy, and that includes wildfire. The harder question in cedar and brush country is not whether you are covered but whether a carrier will write the risk at all, and at what price.

Underwriters here look at brush clearance around the structure, roof material, distance to a responding fire department, water availability on site, and how the property is accessed. Those same factors are the ones you can actually influence. Creating and maintaining defensible space, replacing a wood roof with a Class A rated material, and keeping an accessible drive that a fire truck can turn around on can all affect both availability and rate.

Make sure of two things while you are at it. That your dwelling limit still reflects what it would cost to rebuild here, where materials and labor have to travel. And that your Coverage D, additional living expense, is realistic, because if the house is uninhabitable you may be paying for somewhere to live for a long time.

Generally not, or not in the way people assume. A homeowners policy explicitly excludes motorized vehicles from personal property coverage, and that language reaches ATVs, go-karts, golf carts and motorcycles. Liability for those vehicles is also usually excluded once they leave the insured premises.

There are partial exceptions. Some forms provide limited coverage for a vehicle used solely to service the residence, such as a riding mower, and some provide liability on the premises only. Those exceptions are narrow, and reading them correctly matters.

The practical answer on Hill Country property is a separate policy. Recreational vehicle coverage for ATVs and side-by-sides, and a farm or ranch policy for tractors, implements and equipment, will insure both the machine and the liability that comes with it, including when it is off your place. Given how these are used here, on ranch roads, at the river, with guests aboard, that liability piece is the part worth having. Tell us what is in the barn and we will price it properly.

You can almost certainly use what you already have. A lender does not require a dedicated mortgage protection policy, and an existing term or permanent policy can be used for any purpose your beneficiaries choose, including paying off a note on the house or the land.

Mortgage protection term insurance is simply a term policy whose face amount decreases over time, tracking the projected balance of the loan. These are typically written to match repayment periods of 15, 20, 25 or 30 years, and although the death benefit declines, the premium is usually level, and the premium-paying period is often shorter than the coverage period.

Be more careful with credit life insurance, which is frequently offered at closing or when financing equipment or a vehicle. It is often more expensive than ordinary term insurance for the same protection. If you already own enough life insurance to cover your obligations, buying credit life on top of it is generally not good value. The better plan is to buy a little more term than you currently need, so that future debts are already covered.

Coverage D on your homeowners policy, usually called loss of use or additional living expense. It pays the extra cost of living somewhere else while a covered loss is being repaired: a rental, a hotel, meals above what you would normally spend, additional mileage. The limit is typically 20% of your Coverage A dwelling amount.

Two things make that number matter more out here than in town. Rebuilding takes longer when contractors, materials and inspectors have to travel, so the period you are displaced can run well past what people imagine. And there is not much short-term rental housing in Real County that is not already committed to visitors, which means the nearest practical option may be in Uvalde or further, at whatever the going rate is.

Check the limit and check how it is written, because some policies cap it by time as well as by dollars. If your dwelling limit is low, Coverage D is low with it, which is one more reason the dwelling number is worth revisiting.