Insurance Companies Busy Settling Thousands of Hail Damage ... - 33 KDAF-TV

Irving —

The amount of damage caused by this week's hail stroms may be as high as two billion dollars, according to the Southwestern Insurance Information Service.

North Texans were victimized by the storms, which produced up to baseball-sized hail stones.

Now, many Dallas-area residents are making repairs to their homes and vehicles. CW33's Ashley Roberts is here in the studio to tell us how insurance companies are helping car owners file their claims.

Many insurance companies have been very busy since early Thursday morning filing claims from Wednesday's hail storms. Some, including State Farm, are opening multiple mobile claims sites to help the thousands of customers with automobile damage.

"When I opened my company doors, I was like, "MY CAR!" and I tried video-ing the hail damage on my car," says North Texas driver, Keyurkumar Patel.

Patel is a state farm customer, one of approximately 10,000 North Texans filing an automobile claim with the company after Wednesday's hail storms.

"This is what we specialize in. It's that time of year when hail storms are taking place all over the country," says Steven Brown, State Farm National Catastrophe Team manager. 

"We've been pretty busy here, since I'd say 8 a.m. on Thursday morning; the morning after the storm," says Brownn.

The company has three claims operations offices in the Metroplex. But the large amount of damage means a high demand for more customer help. Already, State Farm has three mobile sites open, and they plan to have a total of eight locations up and running by Tuesday morning. 

"We inspect the vehicles," says Brown. "If the vehicle is deemed repairable, we're issuing payments, issuing copies of the estimates while they're here."

For some, the damage is repairable.

 "Damages around 2,700 to 3,000 [dollars]," says Patel. 

 Others have dents that are a little too deep: a totaled vehicle.

"It's a 10 year old car, I'm not sweating it," says North Texas driver, Brian Bull. "Probably keep it, see whatever settlement they'll bring."

The catastrophe team will continue working in the coming weeks until all claims are settled.

"We much prefer that they make an appointment, that way we can keep things on schedule," says Brown. 

Brown also says that many other insurance companies are offering this type of convenient claims service and advises policy holders to contact their agents to learn how to handle any hail damage done to their vehicles.