Edna, 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 a home in Edna 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 Assurance One of Texas can move you when a carrier 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.

You still need the liability part, without exception. Texas compulsory insurance law applies to the vehicle regardless of what it is worth, and TexasSure will flag it if coverage lapses. Liability exists to compensate the person you injure, and their loss is not limited by the value of your truck.

What you can reasonably reconsider is the physical damage coverage, meaning collision and comprehensive on the truck itself. On an older vehicle the cost of repairing damage often exceeds the vehicle market value, at which point the carrier simply totals it and sends you a check for market value less your deductible. Plenty of owners of older farm and ranch vehicles decide that trade is not worth the premium.

Two cautions before you drop it. If there is a lien, the lender will require it. And around Jackson County, comprehensive is what answers for hail, fire and a deer strike on a county road, none of which have anything to do with how you drive. Run the numbers with us rather than assuming.

Generally yes. When you knowingly lend your vehicle to a friend, a neighbor or someone helping on the place, they are most likely covered under your policy, because auto insurance follows the vehicle first. In fact, even without explicit permission each time, a driver is usually covered if they had a reasonable belief you would have permitted it.

The important consequence is that your limits and your deductible are the ones that respond, and a serious at-fault claim goes on your loss history rather than theirs. Lending the truck lends your insurance with it.

Two things are worth checking in the definitions section of your own policy: who counts as an insured, and whether anyone in your household has been excluded by name. A named driver exclusion is exactly the sort of thing that gets added years ago and forgotten. If someone drives your vehicles regularly, whether a family member or a hand who runs errands in it, tell us, and we will make sure the policy reflects reality instead of assumptions.

Yes. Windstorm and hail are standard covered perils on a Texas homeowners policy here. Jackson County sits inland of the coastal tier, so this is not TWIA territory: the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association writes only in the fourteen first-tier coastal counties plus part of Harris County east of Highway 146. Your wind coverage comes from your regular carrier.

What deserves attention is the deductible, not the coverage. Most Texas carriers now apply a separate wind and hail deductible, and it is often expressed as a percentage of the dwelling limit rather than a flat amount. On a $300,000 home a 2% wind and hail deductible is $6,000 out of pocket before the policy responds, even if the all-other-perils deductible on the same policy is $1,000.

Also check how the policy settles a roof claim. A roof payment schedule that depreciates an older roof changes the arithmetic considerably. Both answers are on your declarations page, and both are better known before a storm than after one.

Shop it, but shop it carefully. Not every carrier uses the same policy form, and some trim protections in order to reach a lower number. The best practice is not to buy on a quote but to wait until the new policy is actually issued, compare it against the old one, and confirm you got the coverage you wanted before cancelling anything.

Then look at discounts. Insuring multiple vehicles on one policy is usually the largest. Others include a defensive driving or driver education course within the last few years, a good-student credit, paid-in-full and paperless credits, and bundling with your homeowners policy. Ask us to run the list, because discounts are not always reapplied automatically at renewal.

Finally, deductibles. Raising a collision or comprehensive deductible from $250 to $500 can lower the premium five to ten percent. That only makes sense if you have the cash to absorb the larger number. Around Edna, where comprehensive claims tend to be hail and animal strikes, treat that deductible as a number you may genuinely have to write.

Almost everywhere. Coverage C follows your belongings anywhere in the world, subject to the perils your policy names. If you buy a dresser while traveling and ship it home, it is covered for those named perils while in transit, even though it has never been inside your house.

That has practical consequences. Luggage stolen on a trip is typically a homeowners claim. A child’s belongings in a college dormitory are usually still covered under your policy; once they move into an off-campus apartment, they generally need their own renters policy.

The liability side travels as well. Homeowners liability covers accidents on your property, such as the delivery driver who slips on your walk, and many policies also respond to accidents away from it, down to running a shopping cart over someone’s foot at the grocery store.

The caveats are real, though. Categories such as jewelry, firearms, silverware and tools carry sub-limits far lower than most people expect. Anything valuable enough that losing it would hurt should be scheduled specifically.

Land raises exposures a town lot does not. Ponds and stock tanks, livestock, gates onto county roads, ATVs and side-by-sides, hunting leases, equipment you lend a neighbor: every one of those is a way a serious liability claim can start, and several sit outside what a standard homeowners form addresses.

A personal umbrella does two jobs. It adds liability limits on top of what your home and auto already carry, and it fills gaps between those two policies. Because the underlying policies pay first, the additional premium is usually modest for the limit it buys.

Read one thing carefully, though: whether the exposure is genuinely personal or has become a farm or commercial one. Running cattle for profit, leasing to hunters, or boarding horses can move a risk out of a personal policy entirely and onto a farm and ranch or commercial liability form. That is a question worth asking before a claim rather than after a denial. Bring us the details of what actually happens on the place and we will tell you which form fits.

Not as written. Direct damage from earthquake, landslide and other earth movement is excluded by the standard homeowners policy, in Texas as everywhere else. If you want it, it comes back by endorsement, and that endorsement typically also picks up landslide, volcanic eruption and similar earth movement.

Whether it is worth buying depends entirely on where you are. Texas is not California, but the state is no longer seismically quiet either: induced seismicity associated with wastewater disposal has produced measurable activity in the Permian Basin and parts of North Texas over the past decade. Jackson County is not in either of those areas, and for most homeowners here the endorsement is not a priority.

It is worth knowing about for two reasons. If you own property elsewhere in the state, the answer may be different. And the exclusion is a useful reminder that a homeowners policy is a list of named perils and stated exclusions, not a general promise. Ask us what else your form excludes; there are usually one or two that matter more than this one.