Richard Johnson - Insurance Council of Texas Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's tough to get a high risk insurance policy these days.
At least it's something you good forward. Six twenty two
is their time here in Houston's born news hey. By
the way, speaking of which I should maybe start with
this for people who have Gulf Coast properties. Richard Johnson,
he's with the Insurance Council of Texas flood insurance, which
generally comes from the federal government. I understand you cannot

(00:21):
renew a flood insurance policy with the FEDS right now
because of the government shutdown.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
That is true. Yeah, any and by the way, thanks
for having me. Yeah, yeah, right now, when it comes
to flood insurance, to get a new policy or to
renew is whether the difficult or impossible, I'm not sure,
but I know that the system is shut down. But
if you have a current policy and you do have

(00:47):
a claim, apparently you can You'll be able to file
a claim on your current policy.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
But what happens if we, Heaven forbid, we have a
natural disaster here and people who church policies have elapsed
because they cannot renew it because of the government shutdown,
Are they just gonna be out of luck?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah? Unfortunately, that's the way it is, especially when it
comes to renewals. You know, with new policies, it's a
little different because you have a thirty day waiting period anyway,
So if we had a hurricane in the next twenty
nine days, you wouldn't even if the government was open,
you wouldn't have a policy in the next thirty days anyway.
But yeah, those renewals, Wow, if you're trying to renew

(01:30):
that's gonna that's gonna be tough. If we have something
happened in the next in the next however many days,
how of us shut down last.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well, hopefully that's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Let's let's get to the other story that our friends
over there at ABC thirteen were reporting, which is that
thousands Harris County residents are being dropped from their homeowners'
insurance policies because of living in Harris County, which is
considered a relatively high risk when it comes to natural disasters.
What are you hearing on that front?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, honestly, we hadn't heard heard of this report, or
you know, you guys actually brought it to our attention.
We hadn't heard about it. But if you do want
to look at it. It may it may be realistic,
but if you're thinking about it, that's you know, that's
that's about one percent of the policies that are in
Harris County. And they also didn't dig deeper. We got

(02:16):
to look at you know, Okay, there there's a company
that didn't renew my policy, but there's two hundred other
companies that are doing business in Texas. So you have
to shop around. And so we're those people able to
get a new policy or that they have to switch
to the fair plan. So it's kind of an annoyance
or an inconvenience to get non renewed. But there's plenty
of options out there to shop around.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Joly speaking Richard Johnson, how many different insurance companies will
sell homeowners insurance policies here in Texas versus how many
sold them here maybe let's say ten years ago. Have
there been a number of companies that have dropped out
and have not been replaced.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, Actually, we have more companies. I think it's twenty
twenty three. We have more companies doing business here in
Texas than we did even tour or three years yars ago.
In the last three years, we had a couple of
companies leave Texas. But I had nothing to do with
the risk. It was that they the state. Actually it
was the state of Florida that found that they didn't

(03:11):
have enough money on hand to pay claims, and so
they went and solvent and they were absorbed by the
state and then passed back out to other insurance companies.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Okay, and as far as the cost goes, I was
just mentioning I got a renewal offer from my current
homeowners insurance company that is about two hundred dollars less
than it was last year. Of course, the jump between
the year before and last year was just incredible, something
like thirty five forty five percent. So should I just
sign that policy and thank my lucky stars that didn't

(03:43):
go up again?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
I mean, you got always shop. We recommend always shop.
There's so many companies doing business, and there is there's
a shifting right now with companies. There's companies that want
to enter markets and they want to build up a
particular market, and then there are some you know, you
think of it as an invest portfolio. These companies are
looking at their risk tolerance and you can't have uh

(04:05):
you know, uh, you know, let's say you have a
whole neighborhood and you're under one company. Well, and that
com and that neighborhood is you know, averse to to hale.
A company doesn't want that whole portfolio in that neighborhood.
And so as these cities grow, they want to move
out to the suburbs just like just like people do
and uh and spread that around so that we're we're

(04:27):
starting to see those shifts where there's companies kind of
coming in and out of particular markets uh to diversify
their risk tolerance.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Okay, And what's the easiest way to shop around?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, I mean there's there's a bunch of ways. You
can do it yourself and go online to every single company.
There's a couple of websites that that are kind of aggregates.
You can look at several different websites, the Texas Department
of Insurance. You can go to ensurehelp dot com uh
and they actually uh, the Texas Department of Insurance runs
that site. Or you can go to an independent agent.

(05:01):
Independent agents they look at several different companies and they'll
find you the best deal that fits your fits your
lifestyle and fits your budget.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
All right, Richard Johnson, thanks as always appreciated Insurance Counsel
of Texas, Richard Johnson,