State Farm ships agents across state lines to deal with mass of claims

Thousands of claims piling up after huge storms

State Farm ships agents across state lines to deal with mass of claims
by Timothy Montales

State Farm will deploy its agents from out of state to handle claims from the severe weather, composed of large hail and high winds, that swept across Iowa last Thursday afternoon and evening.

Chris Pilcic, spokesman, State Farm, reports that a few areas experienced tennis ball-sized hail.

“It was really state wide, in different parts of the state geographically, though we are concentrating on some of the metro areas where we’ve had the most claim volume. In addition to the local resources who’ve been working since the day of the storm, we’ve deployed more resources to those areas,” Pilcic reports.

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Des Moines, Cedar Falls, Waterloo and Davenport are among those areas afflicted by the weather, and the company’s claims specialists report a lot of roof damage, but also dented siding to homes and shattered windows, primarily from hail, but also from wind, as featured in an article at the Radio Iowa website

“Since the severe weather in Iowa, we’ve heard from over 1,000 customers reporting damage. The majority of claims we’re hearing about thus far is to automobiles, over 600 claims have been filed. On the homeowners’ side, we’ve heard from nearly 500 customers reporting damage to their homes,” Pilcic adds.

At present, State Farm has received a total of 1,010 hail claims in Iowa from last week’s storms. In all of last year, the company had 2,700 hail claims in the state. Given the backlog of claims, some customers did not have a personal visit from their agent, and Pilcic advises that people should not wait to take action to protect their properties.

“If you have broken windows, if you’re missing shingles or there’s a hole in your roof, if there’s really significant damage, you can take steps to make temporary repairs. If you buy tarps or plywood or even if you hire someone to make those temporary repairs, take pictures, save your receipts, save your invoices and tell your insurance company about it. That’s going to be covered by your homeowner’s insurance policy,” Pilcic recommends.


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