I had State Farm several years ago, for homeowners and my cars.
In one year, first a freak windstorm takes down a tree in my front yard, not doing any damage to my house, but it took down utility wires and the cover for them on my neighbor's house. I called the emergency claim number, and was told neighbor's HO policy would pay for their damage as it was "an Act of Nature", since the tree was not dead. Their insurance company tried a couple of times to get mine to pay for damage, even went so far as to talk to utility company and tree cutters as to whether or not the tree was dead...all said it was not. State Farm DID NOT pay any money out to me or the neighbor.
Next my son's car was parked on the street in front of our house and was broken into. He had his backpack in an expensive calculator in it, one of those mega CD holders and some other personal stuff, taken. Plus the thieves took the stereo system he had put in. And of course they broke the window. Car was actually mine, and he was living at home at the time. Claim was paid....and since it was a break-in on the car, claim was on my homeowner's policy.
1 day short of a year later, from the car episode, I turned in a claim for a new roof due to a hail storm. New roof. State Farm paid it. Month later, I received a cancellation notice from them for having too many claims in a year.
Best friends' daughter and son-in-law have 2 Nationwide agencies. They have gotten very quick response on the damage from our storms the end of April.
I know after Katrina and then Wilma...both State Farm and Allstate stopped writing HO insurance policies for the remainder of 2005. Not sure how widespread it was, but I know people here that were buying new homes (for them) could only get State Farm or Allstate on the new house if they already had an active policy in their "old" home. First time home buyers were having a very had time getting HO insurance, and I know - at least in my office - it was coming down to time of closing before people were able to get insurance. It was a real mess.
I would not be at all surprised to see it happen again this year, with all the disasters happening. Local paper reported over $200million in claims just here from the April 27th tornadoes. That was about 2 weeks ago, I would not be surprised to see it go quite a bit higher. Every house in my subdivision (116 houses) is getting new roof(30year dimensional roofs) guttering and downspouts, all roof vents. I don't know how many are getting new windows, but most are getting at least some new screens(I'm getting 13), many are having their decks resurfaced and refinished (I am), holes in siding(I have), outside lights, outside furniture and grills, AC units repaired (I have 2 that are damaged). BFF's getting all new siding too, even though she only has damage on 2 sides, because her color has been discontinued, so the whole house will have to be redone...her house is only 7 yrs old.
As extensive as the damage is around here, it is nothing compared to south of us in AL. Add in the floods, and now all the new damage from this weekend. News said last night there were
872 tornadoes in the month of April! May is technically the start of tornado season, and June is technically the start of hurricane season that continues to the first of November. How much damage is yet to come? Will some companies stop writing policies.
The Nationwide adjustor told my friend that roofing costs had already had one increase, and that whatever he determined their amount (or anybody's) of damage and amount of reimbursement, would NOT cover their repairs, because of supply/demand, the unprecedented high number of claims in so many states...there just isn't enough product out there which is going to cause long delays in some repairs. Once they get estimates, they are to submit them to Nationwide for review. There is a 6 week wait for car windows.
Both my next door neighbor and the people behind us, haven't even seen their adjustors yet. So far, I've only seen 4 new roofs go on in here. Supposedly, house closings have been halted due to extensive repairs being needed and no one wants to close without them being done. I know a lot of houses have been pulled off the market due to damage.
Again....we have NOTHING here, compared to so many places.
According to the weather people, this current weather pattern through the midwest and south is to continue for several more days....
