About 6,300 insurance claims have been filed since tornadoes hit the St. Louis area less than three weeks ago. This is the third straight year insurance companies have had to deal with thousands of storm-related claims.
State insurance director John Huff thinks almost seven-thousand claims will be filed eventually from the tornadoes that caused widespread damage in St. Charles and in St. Louis Counties the night of May 31st and the morning of June first. Most of the claims are for residential damage.
Tornadoes and floods hit Missouri in 20-11, and more storms left a lot of damage last year. And this spring has been no picnic. But Huff says insurance companies don’t seem to be thinking about leaving Missouri, despite the milions they’ve had to pay out in benefits in the last two-plus years.
Some storm experts have said a lot of storm damage to homes could be avoided if homeowners installed hurricane clips to keep the roofs on in severe winds or took other steps to anchor the home to the foundation. Huff isn’t ready to suggest Missouri needs a state building code, but he does say a lot of homeowenrs could save themselves a lot of anguish if they took some commonsense steps.