Austin hailstorm has thousands filing insurance claims for home and car damage
September 30, 2023
AUSTIN, Texas — This week’s hailstorm in the Austin area has thousands of people filing claims for home and car damage.
State Farm says 8,700 claims for home and vehicle damage have been filed from Monday through Wednesday. Those claims can make your insurance premiums go up. Whether they do depends on the type of claim and how many a person files. But the first steps in getting homes and vehicles repaired are documenting damage and filing a claim as quickly as possible.
In the Mueller neighborhood there are streets where every home was damaged in this week’s hailstorm. Roofs, gutters, and windows were hit by baseball-size hail which means thousands of insurance claims are coming in every day.
“All of a sudden, we heard it just smashing into the house,” said Molly Morse. “It sounded very apocalyptic.”
The hailstorm was quite an introduction to home ownership for Morse. She moved into a house in the Mueller area in Central Austin three weeks ago and never expected to already be filing insurance claims for a lengthy list of repairs.
Morse wanted to start repairs as quickly as possible so she did what everyone should do.
“Message your people immediately,” said Morse.
She emailed her insurance agent Sunday night, during the hailstorm, and her roof was inspected on Wednesday. Filing fast, put her at the front of the line.
“As soon as you realize you’ve experienced any kind of hail damage to your home or to your vehicle you want to go ahead and submit that claim,” said Robert Ndegwa, an insurance agent with State Farm.
Ndegwa says make it a priority to document every dent and ding.
“The important thing to do is take as many pictures as you can and catalogue that damage,” said Ndegwa.
