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Rob and Jenny Morris will repair their
burly pickup. The decision wasn't so clear for Bob and June Terry and
their two older sedans.
The Morrises of St. Charles and the Terrys of Charlack
were among the first to bring badly dimpled vehicles to a State Farm
Insurance temporary claim center. After widespread havoc such as the
April 28 deluge of hail, insurance companies often set up special shops
for policyholders to bring their troubles.
State Farm estimators examined the cracked windshield and
deep dents on a 2005 Ram pickup and proposed paying in full for the
repairs. That pleased the Morrises. But estimators declared the Terrys'
2001 Impala and 2003 Nissan sedan "totaled," meaning the cost of repairs
would exceed the market values of the vehicles.
The Terrys had to decide whether give up their cars or
take smaller settlements to repair them. And Bob Terry, coach of a youth
baseball team, had a game that afternoon.
"We need the car now," he said, thinking of first pitch. "We'll figure things out later."
So it went Thursday as vehicles rolled into the shop at
Interstate 270 and North Lindbergh Boulevard. State Farm has four others
on both sides of the Mississippi River. American Family Insurance Co.
has established six of them in the metro area.
Policyholders make appointments. Jim Camoriano, State
Farm spokesman, estimated its shops will examine at least 700 vehicles
daily beginning Monday and stay open for two weeks, maybe more.
Both companies' shops are in the April 28 hail belt,
which ran from Lincoln County, Mo., into Washington County, Ill. State
Farm already has more than 23,600 vehicle claims in the two states, most
of them in the St. Louis area. American Family reported 5,800 bang-up
vehicles in the metro.
Combined, the two companies insure about one third of the area's cars and trucks.
The National Weather Service had numerous reports of 1
3/4-inch hail, sometimes larger, as strong thunderstorms swept across
the region Saturday. One storm blew apart a large tent at Kilroy's
Sports Bar south of Busch Stadium, fatally injuring one man and hurting
100 others.
Scott Blind, owner of a company that specializes in
repairing hail damage, said smaller insurance companies work through
body shops or hire independent adjusters. He said his KhS Global of
Sunset Hills already has 5,000 customers lined up and expects more as
claims roll in.
"We'll be busy for six months," said Blind.
Blind's company smooths out hail dimples manually, pushing on them from the inside with special tools.
Brice Huddleston, catastrophe team manager at State
Farm's Hazelwood claims shop, said that the "paintless dent repair"
system works well for smaller hail dimples.
Bigger jobs, Huddleston said, can require replacing hoods and roofs. That's how repair costs climb quickly.
The big insurance companies have traveling adjusters who
descend on storm locations to handle claims. Huddleston, of St. Louis,
counts Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast in 2005 among his campaigns.
At the shops, every customer has a lively story about
hail. Jenny Morris said she and her husband were in a tavern at Westport
with friends "when the whole sky fell in. We were lucky. A friend's car
only two (parking) spots away had the windows smashed."
Bob Terry said his family retreated to the basement "when
it sounded like horses running across our roof. I watched baseball hail
banging off the cars. It's a bad feeling."
Insurance adjusters also are busy with roofs, chimneys,
windows and siding on homes and other buildings. State Farm reported
9,900 property claims, and American Family already has 5,100, spokesmen
said.
Large hail can do that. Severe thunderstorms that
bombarded the area on April 10, 2001, caused about $700 million in
damage. That was Missouri's costliest storm until the tornado that
ripped apart Joplin on May 22, 2011, killing 161 people. Claims there
already have reached $1.4 billion, according to the Missouri Department
of Insurance.
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