Licensed in Texas (TX)
Texas has the second-largest economy in the United States, powered by energy, technology, healthcare, and an ever-expanding population. With unique risks ranging from hurricanes on the Gulf Coast to hailstorms across North Texas, businesses need smart commercial insurance strategies built for the Lone Star State.
Takes ~2 minutes · We review your requirements · Coverage matched to your contracts
Operating without proper commercial insurance in Texas exposes your business to lawsuits, regulatory penalties, and uninsured losses. Coastal businesses in TWIA-designated areas must obtain windstorm coverage separately. Texas requires certificate of insurance for contractors on many public projects. Commercial auto minimums are $30,000/$60,000/$25,000. The Texas Prompt Payment of Claims Act imposes strict deadlines on insurers for claim handling.
Bobby Friel
Partner, Direct Insurance Services
You know how it is — you're running operations, managing people, watching cash flow, and you don't have time to wonder whether your contracts have ever been read against your active policy line by line. You assume the general liability limit matches what your largest contract requires. You assume the workers' comp classification codes still reflect what your team actually does. You assume the cyber sublimit would cover the ransomware attack your industry is now experiencing. And then a vendor submits a non-compliant COI you can't enforce, or a claim gets denied on a coinsurance penalty, and suddenly you're discovering what the policy actually says.
What we do is map your actual contracts, leases, governing documents, and operational realities to the policy language — before you renew, before a denied claim becomes your problem. On video. So you know exactly how your policy responds.
We bind fast too. As fast as the online quote tools on standard risks. The difference isn't speed — it's that we don't ship coverage with gaps. Is saving 5 to 10 minutes on a generic quote worth gaps that can shut your operation down, drain revenue during a claim dispute, and force cash payouts the policy was supposed to cover?
When was the last time anyone took the time to close your coverage gaps before the bind, not after the claim?
On Video Before Binding
Watch how a real commercial policy review works and how commercial insurance actually responds — before you decide what to bind.
Watch: How commercial insurance actually works
Everything you need to know about commercial coverage — in under 2 minutes.
Watch: A real commercial policy review
Patrick Henigan · Licensed Agent, Direct Insurance Services
Coverage Areas
Each industry has a dedicated Texas page with state-specific coverage details, cost factors, laws, and FAQs.
Tailored coverage for Texas HOAs managing hail damage, hurricane exposure, and master-planned community growth across booming metro areas.
Liability protection for Texas commercial landlords navigating one of the nation's most active leasing markets across major metro areas.
Cyber coverage for healthcare, e-commerce, professional services, and any operation handling customer data or accepting digital payments.
Coverage for Texas contractors working across the state's massive construction market, from Houston high-rises to DFW suburban development.
Protect Texas restaurants across the state's diverse culinary landscape, from Austin food trucks to Houston's internationally acclaimed dining scene.
Don't see your industry? Browse all commercial insurance options
⚠️ Key Risks
The coverage gaps and risk patterns we see most often when reviewing policies for Texas businesses.
The Texas Gulf Coast from Brownsville to Beaumont faces direct hurricane risk. Catastrophic storms like Harvey (2017) caused over $125 billion in damage. Coastal businesses must navigate separate windstorm coverage through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) in designated areas.
Texas leads the nation in hail damage claims. North Texas and the I-35 corridor experience frequent severe hailstorms that cause billions of dollars in commercial property damage annually, driving up property insurance costs and deductibles.
Texas has become a hotspot for nuclear verdicts — jury awards exceeding $10 million — particularly in trucking, premises liability, and oilfield injury cases. Despite tort reform, the state's large jury pools and plaintiff-friendly venues create significant liability exposure.
Flooding is not limited to coastal areas. Flash flooding from intense rainfall events affects businesses across Central Texas, the Hill Country, and major metro areas. Houston's flat terrain and impervious surfaces make it particularly flood-prone during heavy rain events.
Texas summers routinely bring extended periods of 100°F+ temperatures and drought conditions that increase wildfire risk in rural areas, stress building systems, and create occupational heat illness liability for employers with outdoor workers.
Oil and gas price fluctuations directly impact Texas businesses tied to the energy supply chain. Economic downturns in energy markets can trigger commercial vacancies, reduced revenue, and increased pressure on insurance budgets across Houston, Midland-Odessa, and other oil patch communities.
Cost Overview
| Industry | Top Cost Drivers | Key Cost Driver | Risk Level | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contractors | Trade class, payroll, COI requirements, claims history | Trade type, payroll, COI requirements | Critical | |
| Restaurants | Cuisine type, liquor %, seating, delivery operations | Liquor sales %, seating, late-night hours | Significant | |
| HOA / Condo | Unit count, amenities, claims history, CC&R requirements | Units, construction type, amenities | Notable | |
| Commercial Landlords | Occupancy mix, property age, tenant insurance compliance | Property value, tenant mix, vacancy | Significant | |
| Cyber (Healthcare / E-Com / Tech) | Data sensitivity, revenue, security controls, vendor stack | Industry + data type + controls in place | Critical |
These ranges vary significantly based on your specific business, claims history, and coverage needs. Use our free risk calculators to flag specific coverage gaps — or request a quote to walk through your operation with us.
Risk Calculators
Free risk calculators — no signup, no email required. Pick your industry and identify your gaps in 30 seconds.
Identify your GL, workers comp, and auto coverage gaps by trade.
Identify coverage risks for your restaurant type.
Identify coverage risks for your master policy and D&O by community size.
Identify LRO and liability coverage risks for your building.
Identify ransomware, BI, privacy, and vendor gaps for healthcare / e-commerce / tech.
Coverage We Specialize In
Across the operations we insure, these are the nine coverage types we review most often — sometimes because they're foundational, sometimes because they're frequently missing from standard renewals, and sometimes because they require depth most generalist agencies don't carry. We walk through each one against your specific documents, not against a generic category.
Every commercial lease, general contractor agreement, and lender requirement names a specific liability limit. General liability responds when a third party is injured on your premises, when your work or operations damage someone else's property, or when a claim involving advertising, defamation, or personal injury comes back against the business. It's the foundation most other commercial coverage is built on — and the limit that renewal cycles most commonly carry forward without being measured against what current contracts actually require. We review your active agreements alongside your current policy to confirm the limit your coverage shows matches the limit your contracts demand.
Explore General Liability Coverage →In most of the 29 states we serve, workers' compensation is required by law once you employ anyone. It covers medical expenses, rehabilitation costs, and a portion of lost wages when an employee is injured or becomes ill from work-related activity. Whether you have employees is rarely the question — the question is whether the classification codes assigned to your workers reflect what they actually do on the job. Misclassified roles create gaps that standard policy renewals don't surface. Coverage can be in place and still not respond correctly when the job description doesn't match what's on the dec page (the policy's declarations page). We review your payroll structure and job descriptions alongside your current coverage to confirm every role is classified and covered correctly.
Explore Workers' Compensation →A cyber incident — whether ransomware, a stolen vendor login, or a data breach — triggers costs that most standard commercial policies don't cover: forensic investigation, notification to affected parties, regulatory response, and lost-income coverage during the recovery period. Standalone cyber coverage handles those costs. What it actually pays for depends on the caps inside the policy on specific loss categories — limits that vary significantly from one policy form to another. Most standard commercial packages don't include standalone cyber coverage at all. For any business that processes payments, holds client or member data, or operates a networked system, that gap exists whether or not the renewal cycle surfaced it. We review your current policy alongside your actual digital exposure to confirm where coverage is in place and where it isn't.
Explore Cyber Insurance →Commercial property coverage protects your physical assets — owned or leased buildings, equipment, inventory, and the improvements your business has made to a space — when fire, storm, theft, or equipment breakdown interrupts your operations. The limit that matters is what it would cost to rebuild or replace at today's prices. Policies carried forward through multiple renewal cycles often reflect property values from when the building was last appraised — not current construction costs or the current replacement value of equipment and inventory. We review your property schedules — what's listed, at what value, and under what coverage terms — to confirm the numbers reflect your operation as it actually exists today.
Explore Commercial Property →If a vehicle is used for business — owned by the company, leased, or driven by an employee using their personal car for a work errand — a personal auto policy won't respond when the accident happens on company time. Commercial auto covers the business vehicle and the liability that comes with putting a vehicle on the road in the company's name. The gap most commercial auto renewals miss isn't the owned fleet — it's coverage for employees using their own vehicles for work — sometimes called hired and non-owned auto — that standard commercial auto renewals often don't include by default. We review your vehicle schedule and how your team uses vehicles for work to confirm coverage matches how your operation actually moves.
Explore Commercial Auto →A Business Owner's Policy — commonly called a BOP — bundles general liability and commercial property coverage into a single policy structure. For small to mid-size commercial operations that need both, the bundle simplifies administration and reduces the number of separate policies to track. What the bundle doesn't do on its own: it doesn't verify that the property limits reflect actual replacement values, or that the liability limits match what current leases and contracts require. Consolidated coverage carries the same precision requirements as individual policies. We review your BOP structure against your current lease obligations, contract requirements, and property schedules to confirm the bundle reflects your operation as it stands.
Explore Business Owner's Policy →When a primary policy's limit is exhausted — whether general liability, commercial auto, or workers' compensation — a commercial umbrella extends coverage above it. It raises your total coverage capacity without requiring higher limits on every underlying policy individually. For building owners, HOA boards, contractors, and restaurant operators with real large-loss exposure, the question isn't whether to carry excess coverage. It's whether the current limit was set to match the actual scale of what's now at risk. Most umbrella limits are established at inception and never re-measured as the operation grows or as the risk environment changes. We review your current umbrella structure against your underlying policies and your actual exposure today.
Explore Commercial Umbrella →An HOA master policy is the association's primary property coverage — the policy that responds when shared structures, common areas, and the building envelope sustain damage. What it actually covers depends on whether the policy is structured as "bare walls," "single entity," or "all-in" — three distinct coverage structures with meaningfully different implications for what individual unit owners are responsible for covering on their own. The governing documents set the coverage obligation. The master policy needs to match. Most master policies are renewed from the prior year's dec page (the policy's declarations page) without being read against current governing-document requirements, reserve study findings, or recent structural assessments. We read your governing documents and your master policy together — on video — to confirm the structure and limits reflect what the association is actually responsible for.
Explore HOA Master Policy →Building owner coverage — also written as lessor's risk only (LRO) insurance — is the commercial property and liability structure built specifically for owners of occupied commercial buildings. It covers the building itself, lost rental income if a covered event makes the property unrentable, and the liability exposure that comes with operating a commercial building. What standard property policies often miss: vacancy provisions — policy clauses that restrict or exclude coverage when occupancy drops below a certain threshold — and lease compliance requirements that most standard renewals don't verify against active tenant agreements. We review your lease structures, occupancy history, and current policy terms together to confirm your coverage reflects the building as it's actually operating.
Explore Building Owner Coverage →Our Process
Bobby Friel
Partner, Direct Insurance Services
Our process is designed to get you the right coverage for your Texas operation — not a generic business owner policy. Here are the 6 steps we walk through together.
Share your operation type, revenue, payroll, and any specific coverage requirements from contracts, lenders, GCs, project owners, governing documents, or vendors. We start with your real situation — not a generic application.
Before we quote, we read the documents that actually determine your real exposure — contracts, leases, governing documents, vendor agreements, certificate requirements. Restaurants get their lease and franchise agreement reviewed. HOAs get their CC&Rs and bylaws reviewed. Landlords get their leases reviewed. Contractors get their subcontract agreements reviewed. Cyber clients get their data-handling commitments reviewed. This is where most agents skip the work.
Your operation goes to the carriers that actually write your vertical at competitive terms — not generalists treating your industry as an add-on to a BOP. We compare coverage, pricing, and claims handling across 30+ A-rated carriers and surplus markets.
We walk you through every option on video — limits, exclusions, what your documents actually require, what is covered, what is not. No PDFs to decipher, no jargon. Just plain English.
Need coverage for a new contract, lease signing, board meeting, or closing? We review your requirements before binding so your coverage clears on the first submission.
Your COIs, endorsement updates, and renewal reviews happen on your timeline, not on a service-ticket queue. Need a certificate at 4pm Friday for a Monday job? Handled.
We're appointed with carriers who write each of our 5 verticals at competitive terms — restaurants, HOAs, commercial landlords, contractors, and cyber. Not generalists treating your operation as an add-on. We compare quotes from multiple A-rated specialty markets to find the policy language that actually responds when you need it.
“I run a snow plow removal business and my old insurance provider dropped my coverage!! They got everything sorted out and I was insured the same day. These guys know how to help, use them!!”
— Jessica K., Google Review
“Helped me get the right coverage for my business and made everything super easy to understand. Bobby was especially great — very friendly, responsive, and genuinely cared about making sure I was taken care of.”
— Michael O., Google Review
“He takes the time to understand your business needs before recommending coverage. You can tell he genuinely cares about his clients and goes the extra mile to make sure everything is handled properly.”
— Jen K., Google Review
“I run a snow plow removal business and my old insurance provider dropped my coverage!! They got everything sorted out and I was insured the same day. These guys know how to help, use them!!”
— Jessica K., Google Review
📝 Helpful to Have
The more we know about your operations, contracts, and exposure profile, the more precisely we can match coverage to your actual risk. Here's what helps — but if you don't have it all, we'll work through it together.
Don't have everything? No problem — start the form and we'll review what we need together.
What Changes When We Read First
Texas commercial operators who choose to have their coverage reviewed first — before binding, before renewal, before a claim — see real changes in how their commercial insurance program performs. Here's what looks different six months in.
Frequently Asked
Commercial Insurance in Texas
Four angles on what shapes commercial insurance for Texas operators — landscape, laws, realities, and cost drivers.
Texas commercial insurance operates across one of the largest and most geographically diverse state markets in the country. The commercial real estate market — concentrated in Houston's Energy Corridor and suburban commercial corridors, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Austin's growth-driven office and mixed-use development, and San Antonio's expanding suburban base — makes building owner coverage one of the most active commercial insurance lines in the state.
Contractor operations in Texas scale across oil and gas infrastructure, residential and commercial construction, specialty trade work, and infrastructure projects tied to ongoing population growth. Texas is the only state in the country where workers' compensation coverage is not required for most private employers — creating a subscriber-versus-non-subscriber coverage decision that operators in every other state don't face.
HOA communities governed under the Texas Property Code cover planned communities from the Hill Country resort corridor to master-planned suburban developments in The Woodlands, Frisco, and Allen. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission licensing framework shapes the restaurant and bar operator coverage environment, with mixed beverage permits and beer-and-wine permits underwritten differently by carriers.
Hailstorm and severe convective storm exposure — one of the highest concentrations in the country — drives commercial property loss patterns across Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio that affect building owner and HOA master policy pricing directly. Carrier appetite for commercial property in those corridors reflects the loss history.
Tex. Prop. Code Title 11 (Texas Property Code — HOA and Condo framework) governs HOA operations statewide — board authority, reserve fund practices, and the association's insurance obligations. Texas HB 614 reformed HOA fining processes and created procedural requirements that affect board-liability exposure for decisions made outside the updated framework. Associations that haven't aligned their governing-document enforcement procedures with HB 614 carry unaddressed board-liability exposure that standard D&O renewal forms don't flag.
Texas Labor Code (workers' compensation opt-out framework) makes Texas the only state in the country that does not require most private employers to carry workers' compensation coverage. Employers who opt out — called non-subscribers — lose certain legal defenses that subscribers retain, creating direct liability exposure for work-related injuries that can be brought as negligence claims in court. Non-subscriber employers need employer's liability coverage structured outside the standard workers' compensation policy form.
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code governs TABC licensing across mixed beverage, beer and wine, and private club classifications. Carrier underwriting for restaurant and bar liquor liability is permit-class specific in Texas — mixed beverage permit holders face different underwriting scrutiny than beer-and-wine operators, and carrier appetite adjusts materially for alcohol sales as a percentage of gross revenue.
Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 521 (Texas Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act) requires timely breach notification to affected individuals and, in certain circumstances, the Texas Attorney General. Cyber coverage written for Texas operations requires regulatory defense scope matched to the AG enforcement exposure this framework creates.
Texas commercial operators face a property loss environment dominated by severe convective storms. The Dallas-Fort Worth corridor and San Antonio metro consistently rank among the highest hail-loss-density markets in the country. Building owners and HOA associations in suburban North Texas manage roof replacement cycles shaped by hail frequency, not ordinary wear — and carrier appetite for commercial property in those corridors reflects it. HOA master policies covering low-slope or TPO-membrane roofing systems attract additional underwriting scrutiny and inspection requirements.
The workers' compensation opt-out environment creates a coverage decision that shapes liability exposure in ways that most operators haven't fully mapped. Contractors working on publicly bid projects are typically required to be workers' compensation subscribers — but commercial operators in other verticals face the non-subscriber decision with far less awareness of its actual consequences. Non-subscriber status removes certain legal defenses; the employer's liability exposure that replaces them requires coverage structured to the non-subscriber's actual litigation risk.
Restaurant and bar operators face a liquor liability environment shaped by Texas Dram Shop Act enforcement. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code allows third parties injured by an intoxicated customer to bring a claim against the establishment that served them. Available defenses and the standard of proof differ from other states, which affects how carriers price liquor liability coverage for Texas operations — particularly for mixed beverage establishments with high alcohol-to-food revenue ratios.
Cyber-exposed businesses operating in the Austin technology corridor and the Houston healthcare and energy sector carry distinct data-handling profiles that Texas's breach notification framework places under regulatory enforcement exposure. Healthcare operations managing HIPAA-regulated patient data face both federal enforcement and Texas state-law obligations.
Texas commercial premium drivers vary significantly by region and vertical. Property pricing in Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio reflects hailstorm loss history — carriers price commercial property in high-convective-storm-density corridors with wind and hail deductibles and surcharges that don't appear at the same scale in most other states. Building owners who haven't updated their property schedule to reflect current replacement costs after recent construction inflation face an underinsurance gap that the renewal cycle rarely surfaces on its own.
For HOA associations, reserve fund compliance and the current status of governing-document enforcement procedures post-HB 614 are active board-liability underwriting factors. Associations with documented reserve deficiencies or procedural gaps attract narrower D&O carrier appetite and higher retention requirements. Associations in the DFW hail corridor face master policy property pricing that reflects both structural exposure and hailstorm loss frequency.
Texas workers' compensation pricing — for employers who are subscribers — is driven by industry classification code accuracy and experience modification rates. The experience modification rate reflects the employer's claims history relative to the industry average. Employers who haven't audited their classification codes against actual job descriptions routinely pay premiums calculated on the wrong baseline. Non-subscriber employers face a different cost structure entirely, anchored in employer's liability market rates rather than the standard workers' compensation system.
Restaurant and bar operators face liquor liability premiums calculated against license type and alcohol sales percentage. Mixed beverage permit holders typically see higher premiums than beer-and-wine operators, and carriers adjust for bar-to-restaurant revenue ratios. Operations whose alcohol-to-food revenue mix has shifted since the last policy review may be carrying premiums that no longer reflect their actual sales profile.
Texas A-Rated Carrier Relationships
We shop your Texas commercial insurance program across 12+ A-rated specialty markets to match your operation to the right paper.
Plus additional specialty markets across our 29-state service area.
🗺️ Multi-Market Reach
Building owners in North Texas hail corridors carry property profiles that admitted and surplus-line carriers weigh differently — storm-frequency loss history, roofing system type, and construction vintage all factor into where coverage can be written. Contractors facing the workers' compensation subscriber decision need employer's liability structures that the standard market doesn't package uniformly. HOA associations in suburban storm-exposed markets and restaurant operators under TABC mixed-beverage scrutiny each face underwriting that carriers approach from distinct angles. We shop your governing documents, your lease structures, your subcontract requirements, and your TABC license classification across multiple carriers so your Texas operation is matched to the paper that actually underwrites what you're running.
Regulatory Snapshot
Key regulatory frameworks shaping commercial insurance for Texas operators.
Texas Department of Insurance (TDI)
Texas Insurance Code governs all insurance activity. Texas uses a file-and-use system for commercial lines. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) provides wind and hail coverage in 14 coastal counties and parts of Harris County. Texas enacted significant tort reform in 2003 (HB 4) capping non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.
Texas is the only state where workers compensation is voluntary for private employers. However, non-subscribers lose important legal defenses and face direct employee lawsuits. Texas Mutual Insurance Company is the state's insurer of last resort for workers comp. Employers who opt out must notify employees and file with TDI.
Coastal businesses in TWIA-designated areas must obtain windstorm coverage separately. Texas requires certificate of insurance for contractors on many public projects. Commercial auto minimums are $30,000/$60,000/$25,000. The Texas Prompt Payment of Claims Act imposes strict deadlines on insurers for claim handling.
Business Climate
Texas boasts a GDP exceeding $2 trillion, making it an economic powerhouse that would rank among the world's top ten economies as a standalone nation. The energy sector remains foundational, with Houston serving as the global capital of the oil and gas industry, home to headquarters for ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, ConocoPhillips, and thousands of oilfield services companies. However, the Texas economy has dramatically diversified, with technology firms flocking to Austin's Silicon Hills, including Tesla, Samsung, Apple, and Oracle.
The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has become one of the nation's premier corporate relocation destinations, hosting headquarters for AT&T, American Airlines, Texas Instruments, and Charles Schwab. The region's central location, business-friendly tax environment, and massive labor pool attract companies across finance, telecommunications, and defense. San Antonio contributes through military installations, healthcare systems, and a growing cybersecurity corridor, while the Rio Grande Valley supports one of the most active international trade zones in North America.
Texas continues to lead the nation in population growth, adding hundreds of thousands of new residents annually. This growth fuels extraordinary demand for construction, infrastructure, and commercial real estate. The state has no corporate or personal income tax, further cementing its status as a top destination for business formation. Manufacturing, agriculture, aerospace, and logistics round out an economy that is among the most diversified in the country.
National Footprint
We provide commercial insurance review across 29 service states.
We work with 30+ A-rated carriers to find the right coverage for Texas businesses. Start your quote online — it takes about 2 minutes.
