Hail prone areas may result in multiple storms which damage a roof. Not too many policyholders are climbing up on their roofs to measure exactly how much hail damage is done after a hail storm occurs. But their insurance companies must be expecting them to do so based on a recent case involving Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Company.1
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In my last blog post, I wrote about the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Windridge of Naperville Condominium Association v. Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company.1
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Joey Childress of Childress Engineering Services from Richardson, Texas, was attending the First Party Claims Conference in Marina Del Rey, California. He came up to me and showed a video and photographs of an extreme hailstorm hitting the greater Dallas Fort Worth area.
We’ll let the jury decide.
Policyholders must meet post-loss obligations under their property insurance policy prior to receiving coverage for a loss. A common condition precedent requires policyholders to provide prompt notice of the loss to their carrier. The carrier must be able to conduct a reasonable investigation of the property conditions as close to the loss date as possible to determine whether the stated event caused the loss claimed.
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With less than sixty days until the one-year anniversary of the most expensive hailstorm in Colorado history which hammered west metro Denver on May 8, 2017, many individuals, business owners, and community associations members continue the difficult task of negotiating with insurance companies in an effort to return property to pre-storm conditions.
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While Texas continues to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, hail season is quickly approaching. While it is true that hail can develop any time of year, spring is traditionally when large hail events have hit Texas.
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Note: This guest blog is by Lewis O’Leary, who has served as both a forensic investigator and restoration contractor since Hurricane Camille (1969). He has a degree in the fields of Mechanical Engineering and Architecture, is the Chairman of the Education Committee for the Building Envelope Science Institute, and is a design/build, General Contractor licensed in North Carolina. Mr. O’Leary also serves as a staff consultant for engineering firms involved with wind damage from hurricanes and tornadoes. He can be contacted at 919-577-0907 or via e-mail at probuil@aol.com.
In researching the weather data for the June 14, 2017, hailstorm in the Midland/Odessa area, I shocked a veteran contractor who that works storm clean up by telling him that my research shows that wind typically causes more damage than hail.
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Monday’s hailstorm was likely one of the most damaging hailstorms to impact the Denver metropolitan area. Thousands of homeowners, business owners, and associations will be filing insurance claims in the coming days, if they haven’t already done so.
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Insurance companies routinely have instructions for their claims adjusters on how to adjust various types of losses. State Farm has some of the most detailed claims guidelines in the industry. I have often stated that for first-party claims, relevant claims guidelines should also be provided to the policyholders who suffer losses. Why not?
Colorado Springs was hit by epic hail storms this past July. Reports noted tennis ball size hail and citizens shoveling away hail as if it were a snowstorm. A massive number of hail storm insurance claims resulted. As sure as the sun rises, disputes about how much is covered and the amount owed under the policy are now topics of heated debate.