More cars to attract dings
Colorado hailstorms aren’t more frequent. They just cost more as the state’s population expands.
“As people continue to build more things across larger areas, you’re going to happen to be hit by the hail more often.” Russell Danielson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service
Despite the rash of storms that have hit the Front Range this summer, Colorado is not being pummeled by more hail than usual. And the size of hailstones that have fallen in the region is not unprecedented, according to weather experts.
In a state where the population has shot up by 1.3 million people since 2000, the hail is just dinging more cars, battering more rooftops and otherwise wreaking havoc that is taking a bigger and bigger bite out of more bank accounts. Like the hail, that trend isn’t likely to let up anytime soon.
“We’ve always been hail alley, but over the past three to five years we’ve really seen this volatile pattern of large hail hitting densely populated areas,” said Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. “We have a booming population, more homes, larger homes, more cars out on the roadway. It’s unfortunately affecting insurance rates. What we pay out in claims is what people pay in premiums.”
This year is expected to be the 11th in a row in which the damage from severe storms exceeds $10 billion in the United States, and 70 percent of that cost comes from hail, said Ian Giammanco, a research meteorologist for the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.
Colorado trailed only Texas for the number of hail-related insurance claims filed between 2013 and 2015, according to a 2016 National Insurance Crime Bureau report. Meanwhile, the average annual auto insurance rate in the state — adjusted for variables such as age and driving record — increased 54.2 percent between 2011 and 2017, hitting $1,435 last year, according to a study from The Zebra, an insurance data clearinghouse.
Premiums will rise again in 2018, a year during which severe weather in the United States is projected to cause more than $10 billion in damage. Seventy percent of that price tag will be the result of hail, Giammanco told
The Associated Press last week.
All that’s happened in Colorado since the release of that 2016 report is three consecutive summers of hailstorms causing recordbreaking damage.
“We really are in a perfect storm of risk,” Walker said.
Nothing this summer has approached the $2.3 billion calamity that pounded the northwest metro area May 8, 2017 — Colorado’s most damaging storm by far — but Walker’s association has tracked three hail events this summer that it ranks among the state’s “catastrophes.”
• An Aug. 6 storm in the Colorado Springs area that injured more than a dozen people, killed five animals at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and so far has resulted in $172.8 million in insurance-covered losses.
• A $276.4 million storm that hit parts of Denver and northern Colorado on June 18 and 19.
• A Colorado Springs/ Fountain-area storm June 13 that caused an estimated $169 million in damage, according to estimates so far.
Between those three storms, at least 102,600 auto and homeowners insurance claims have been filed to date, according to the insurance association. Those damage estimates do not reflect agriculture or commercial losses such as ruined crops or cars damaged on dealer lots, Walker said.
In Colorado Springs, Michael Moore is booking roofing jobs three months in advance now. His firm — Divine Roofing Inc. — can handle about five houses a day with its staff of 35. Divine doesn’t go door to door to find clients, instead relying on walk-ins and word-of-mouth referrals. This summer, Moore has had his fair share of repeat business.
“We had about 100 roofs that we completed in the first hailstorm that then were damaged again in the second hailstorm,” he said. “It’s been traumatic for a lot of people. Folks had better things to do with their summer than deal with back-toback hailstorms. They’ve had to change their plans, cancel vacations.”
Many Front Range observers have said the hail that has fallen this year seems to be larger than in the past, pointing to the softballs that fell on Colorado Springs this month as a bruising example. But weather scientists say hail that size is not unusual.
“We’ve gotten that size hail plenty,” said Russell Danielson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder. “This year we’ve had a few waves of really strong, large hail hitting highly populated areas, so that makes it biggest in the public’s minds. As people continue to build more things across larger areas, you’re going to happen to be hit by the hail more often.”
Regardless of how common it may be, Moore said this year is the first time he’s seen hailstones pierce roofs and fall through the ceilings of a houses. There are homes in Colorado Springs’ Broadmoor neighborhood that had concretetile roofs that were shredded by hail.
“A lot of people ask me, ‘What can I do to prevent hail damage?’ ” Moore said, “and it’s like if 1-inch-thick concrete isn’t going to stop it, there is not a whole lot that is going to.”
When it comes to auto repairs, Walker said the severity of the hailstorms, the number of vehicles they’re hitting and the expense of fixing modern vehicles, many of which now have feature expensive sensors, are all combining to drive up insurance premiums.
Many shops are booking work many months in advance, which means more people are spending more time in rental cars, another cost that is eventually passed back to consumers.
The Ding Guy dent and body shop in Colorado Springs has appointments scheduled into December, owner James Bishop said. He’s had many customers this year who have used all of the rental car coverage afforded them by their insurance policies, and are now paying out of pocket.
“We’ve stopped taking appointments because we’re so booked,” Bishop said. “A lot of cars need 120, 150 hours worth of labor. They’re just destroyed. I have customers mad at me because they bought the wrong insurance. It’s causing quite a mess.”
With the sharp rise in premiums the last few years, Walker is concerned some people might decide to decrease their coverage to soften the impact on their wallets.
“We don’t want to see people cutting corners on coverage that they need because you end up paying for that out of pocket,” she said. “Extensive damage and total losses are piling up.”
State analysts, however, recommend customers take the time to do regular assessments of their policies, budgets and needs, and make coverage decisions based on what’s best for them.
“A lot of times, people aren’t aware of what coverage they have,” said Colorado Division of Insurance spokesman Vincent Plymell. “If they have an older car that maybe it isn’t worth as much, maybe it’s time to get rid of comprehensive coverage. With auto and home, maybe it’s time to raise your deductible to help mitigate these increasing premiums. It’s something that people don’t often think of.”
For Northglenn resident Everado Galaviz, the key to getting through this summer with his sanity intact after his and his wife’s new cars were battered by hail in June was finding a shop that could handle the work in a timely fashion. The Colorado native took a previous vehicle to a dent shop after a hailstorm a few years ago only for it to sit on the lot for months, costing him extra in rental car payments, he said. This summer he scoured online reviews before selecting Front Range Dent Removal in Denver.
Shop owner Anson Roberts said he has taken in cars from as far away as Cheyenne in the last two years. Besides seeing more severe damage in recent summers, Roberts’ main observation about the hailrepair industry in Colorado is that insurance company estimates are almost always low and some shops don’t push providers to cover what ought to be covered.
“My insurance had to come out and look at it a few times,” Galaviz said of his 2018 Chevy Silverado, which he picked up from Roberts’ shop Friday. “Front Range was after them saying, ‘Hey, we need to get this truck looked at.’ They got insurance in there, got the repairs approved and got it done.”
Joe Rubino: 303-954-2953, jrubino@denverpost.com or @Rubinojc