Texas Tornado Claims Counts Rising

Insurers are finding out the recent disastrous weather in Texas took a heavy toll on vehicles.

Auto damage—from tornadoes, but more commonly from hail—is the cause of rapid claims accumulation, insurers say.

State Farm has logged 8,610 auto claims, of which 1,221 vehicles are immobile. Most automobiles that cannot be driven suffered damage from the tornadoes, says spokesman Gary Stephenson.

Other autos show significant damage from hail—some the size of tennis balls—that fell during the April 3 severe storms and tornadoes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 

Nicole Alley, spokeswoman for USAA, says the Texas-based insurer is also seeing many auto claims. The insurer has received about 3,800 total claims. 

Jerry Davies, spokesman for Farmers Insurance, says the storm system was a “huge hail event.”

Farmers has received nearly 5,000 claims, of which 3,120 are auto claims. The insurer sent its mobile-claims-center bus to Arlington, Texas.

The bus is equipped with communications equipment, laptops and phones for customers and non-customers.

State Farm's Stephenson says he has seen many storm sites—and every one affects him.

“You go in knowing what you are going to see; you've seen it before,” he says. “But when you get there, it's always overwhelming.”

For many carriers, claims are piling up fast as insureds push past  fallen tree limbs and sift through the remains of what were once their homes.

“Some are just able to get back to try and recover some belongings, to see what they can salvage,” says Alley, who followed a claims adjuster to Arlington.

As of midnight April 5, State Farm had received 3,082 homeowner's claims—130 of which were homes deemed uninhabitable, Stephenson adds.