We run East Texas crews out of a Tyler office. What should our insurance account for?

It is easy to assume Tyler has a Railroad Commission office. It doesn't. Smith County is RRC District 6, and District 6 is handled from the RRC office at 100 Bane Blvd. in Henderson, which also serves District 5.

What Tyler does have is TxDOT's Tyler district, which covers Anderson, Cherokee, Gregg, Henderson, Rusk, Smith, Van Zandt and Wood counties.

So for a Tyler-based contractor: well permits, inspections and RRC questions go to Henderson. State highway questions for most of your nearby counties go to Tyler. Panola and Harrison jobs fall under TxDOT's Atlanta district instead.

Smith County is not one of the RRC's Haynesville/Bossier counties. The East Texas Field does reach into southeastern Smith County.

The RRC's January 2025 District 6 lease and well listing shows Smith County's gas wells concentrated in Overton (Cotton Valley Sand), with Chapel Hill fields producing from the Cotton Valley, Travis Peak, Rodessa and Pettit, plus smaller entries such as Overton (Haynesville) and Tyler (Rodessa).

The USGS treats the Cotton Valley Group and the Travis Peak and Hosston formations as important natural gas reservoirs across the East Texas Basin and the Louisiana-Mississippi salt basins.

For a contractor, that means tight-sand gas wells, older oil leases, and Haynesville work a short drive east, often for different operators with different MSAs.

After the East Texas Field was discovered in 1930, many oil companies and field developers opened offices in Tyler, and it became a regional center for the industry.

Many contractors still work that way: office and shop in Tyler, crews spread across Smith, Rusk, Gregg, Panola and Harrison, sometimes Louisiana. That has insurance effects:

• Payroll by class. Office staff, field crews and drivers rate differently on workers' comp. Make sure your payroll is split correctly. See workers' comp class codes for oilfield work.
• Employees driving their own vehicles. Crews commuting from Tyler in personal pickups create hired and non-owned auto exposure. See hired and non-owned auto.
• States. If any crew crosses into Louisiana, Louisiana comp is compulsory under R.S. 23:1168, and Louisiana's anti-indemnity act applies to those MSAs. See the Haynesville guide.

FEMA records show Smith County designated, with individual and public assistance, in the April to June 2024 severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes and flooding disaster (DR-4781), and in the February 2021 severe winter storm disaster (DR-4586). Smith County also appears in 2015 and 2016 storm and flood declarations (DR-4223, DR-4245, DR-4269).

For a Tyler shop and yard:

• Know your property policy's wind and hail deductible on the building.
• Confirm flood and freeze on your equipment floater.
• Carry comprehensive on units parked at the yard.

See oilfield equipment insurance.

Send the insurance and indemnity sections of each MSA, your current certificates, your WC information page, your auto schedule, and a list of the counties and parishes your crews work. Add any ISNetworld or Avetta rejection notice.

We check limits against each MSA under Texas Chapter 127, flag any Louisiana work, and look at how your payroll is classed. Your attorney reviews the contracts. A licensed insurance specialist will walk you through the results.