Money Research Collective’s editorial team solely created this content. Opinions are their own, but compensation and in-depth research determine where and how companies may appear. Many featured companies advertise with us. How we make money.
3 Tips to Make Your Insurance Ready for a Tornado
By Alison Tobin MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
This year’s Kansas tornado season got a big bang early — with 11 twisters striking in a single day, April 29, the biggest of them in Andover. Since then, things have been on the quieter side. Yet even relative calm shouldn’t make Kansans complacent about being protected, experts say.
Twisters can strike earlier or later than May, when incidence is highest, and you and your insurance need to be ready. “We are still in the peak of the tornado season for Kansas and much of the Great Plains,” warns Jared Guyer, lead forecaster at NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) historical data bears out Guyer’s point. Of the 10 calendar days between 1950 and 2009 in which tornadoes were the most frequent in Kansas, two are in June. Over the years, June 15 has been marked by 81 twisters — second only to May 22, with 84 tornados — and 62 have occurred on June 4.
Spending time (and, as needed, money) to get your insurance — both homeowners and auto — in order is wise. Our tips will also serve you well against other weather calamities throughout the year, such as hailstorms.
The Kansas tornado season in context
The Andover tornado was the most impactful in Kansas so far this year. Ranked EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF Scale) — where EF-5 is the strongest possible rating — the Andover tornado was on the ground for 20 minutes and traveled nearly 13 miles through residential areas at wind speeds up to 155 mph. Fortunately, there were no deaths, but three people were injured and more than 1,000 structures were destroyed.
Relatively few tornadoes were reported in Kansas in May, Guyer said, and none have been notably powerful. A couple of “brief and weak (EF-0)” twisters struck near Protection in southern Kansas on May 2, he says, and several more, “also very weak and short-lived,” happened in northwest Kansas on May 17.
Further, June tornadoes in Kansas are historically less severe than those earlier in the season, NOAA reports, with their vertical wind shear (which correlates to their destructiveness) traditionally being a bit stronger in April and early May than in late May and early June.
Kansas averages almost twice the number of tornadoes that Missouri sees in a given year, according to Guyer, but it’s still at a relatively high risk of twisters. While Kansas experiences the second greatest number of tornadoes — second only to Texas — the Show-Me state ranks tenth.
How to make your insurance more tornado-ready
Here are some steps to take to be sure your car and homeowners insurance is best protected against tornadoes, and most other bad weather.
Check your home insurance for inflation protection
You likely notice the pains of inflation with your normal day-to-day purchases, like groceries and gas, but you may not be aware of the effects on the cost to rebuild and repair homes. Both materials and labor costs have dramatically increased. In fact, prices for building materials have increased by 28.7% nationally since January 2020.
These elevated costs are leaving some Kansan homeowners short when the worst happens to their property, according to Vicki Schmidt, Kansas Insurance Commissioner. “Not only in the Andover situation but in other situations in Kansas, individuals are finding they’re underinsured,” she said. “There can be significant differences in what it will actually cost to rebuild versus what the dwelling was insured for.”
A key to adequate coverage lies with the replacement cost provisions of your policy. Even with a mortgaged property, the lender will probably require only an actual cash value (sometimes abbreviated as ACV) policy — that is, one that factors depreciation in to reduce the size of claims. Your policy must have replacement cost coverage for more thorough protection, of which there are several kinds with escalating protection (and, yes, premiums).
Michael Garman, an Andover-based insurance agent with Farm Bureau Financial Services, suggests reviewing coverage as part of a periodic home insurance check-in. Garman suggests, “Try to review your coverages with your agent or carrier at least every other year to make sure you are up to date on the valuation of your home because, in this time of inflating home prices, you may fairly quickly become underinsured.”
Create a home inventory to document potential losses
Remembering the exact array of items lost in a home is a challenge, especially given the emotions of the moment. Garman emphasizes the importance of creating a home inventory that documents all personal belongings. It’s a step that, in his experience, far too few homeowners do, leaving them scrambling to assemble a list after suffering losses.
Gather information such as prices you paid for items, and their model names and serial numbers if applicable, and then do a walk-through of the property with your phone’s camera, reciting the relevant information as you capture video images of the items.
Garman recommends keeping your home inventory, if written, and other important documents in a secure spot that’s away from your home, like a bank’s safety deposit box or with a friend or family member who lives in a different area than you. Upload those phone images to a cloud-based storage platform, in case you lose your phone.
Don’t drop comprehensive car insurance, even on an old car
If you own a newer car, especially if it is financed, you likely already carry comprehensive insurance, which protects you from the cost to repair or replace a vehicle after a tornado or other “weather event.”
But some people, as their vehicles get older and less valuable, forgo comprehensive insurance coverage to lower their premiums for car insurance. That comes with risks, especially in the current overheated automotive market. Prices for both new and used cars have been climbing at a clip that could mean the Blue Book value of your vehicle — the amount you would receive in a total loss of the vehicle — may have fallen behind the actual cost to replace the car in today’s market. By dropping comprehensive coverage, you’d forgo even this amount, and be even more financially challenged to replace your car in the event of a total loss.
Be attentive to your car’s paperwork, too. Garman mentions that many people are unaware that if their car is destroyed, the insurance company will want the vehicle’s title before they can pay you the claim settlement. It’s wise, then, to keep the title — along with information on your policy — in a secure place, like a fireproof safe or safety deposit box, that will be accessible even if a tornado should damage your home.
Position your car to limit tornado damage, advises Jay MacLellan, director of public relations at Shelter Insurance in Columbia, Missouri. “If available, park your car in a garage. If a garage isn’t available, park the car on the opposite side of a building the tornado will likely be coming from as this will potentially mitigate damage.”
Regardless of how the season shaped up in April and May, the risk of serious tornadoes remains, and you need to plan accordingly, says Guyer. “Even when things are below-normal in terms of overall tornado counts, localized severe weather can be very impactful to cities, communities and individuals.”
Alison Tobin is a personal finance news writer and editor. She covers news topics in the areas of savings, investing, real estate, taxes, insurance, and more. Her work has been featured in Yahoo!, Forbes, AP News, PropertyCasualty360, and various local publications across the United States.