Yes I spelled it correctly. I am going back a couple of weeks ago to the hail storm that hit our area of Louisville (pronounced Lua-Vulcan-Ducky), Fern Creek, Buechel (pronounced B-U-Chill), and Smyrna (pronounced Smyrna). LOL on the last one.
Anyway it was just coming to dusk and the wind started to pick-up some and it started to rain, first South to North then North to South. My wife and I were sitting at the table enjoying a beverage, after she had worked all day planting plants and cleaning up the back yard while yes I was out showing homes and writing contracts all day.
We noticed some leaves and some other twigs and things starting to come down with the rain but thought nothing of it as the trees have been shedding some anyway. All of a sudden we started hearing pinging sounds coming from out side, so we looked out and noticed there was small pieces (marble size) hail starting to come down. Well it started getting heavier and now the hail was the size of a quarter and we notice that the plants Holly had planted were starting to be hit by the hail and leaves were being shredded of the new plants. It got stronger and now it was the size of a golf ball and every time it hit the house it sounded like someone using a metal baseball bat and hitting a soft or hard ball. It sounded like machine gun fire it was coming down so fast, piling up on the decks and still coming down. When the wind started moving around various parts of the house seemed to be getting the brunt end of it at different times. This continued for about 45 minutes from start to finish.
When it finally ended all the work that Holly had done in the yard was totally changed, with broken branches and plants demolished to 3 to 4 inches of hail in most places across the dek on the back of our house. We went out to inspect for damages and found that the storm had torn up the siding on our home and busted shingles off the rook, torn our gutters up and damages some outdoor furniture.
I had not thought about it over that night but both of our cars were not in the garage during the storm, which quite honestly, I do not think a vehicle has ever been in the garage since we have been here. When I went around to get into my car the driver side mirror was broken out, so I started looking at the vehicle to see if there were anymore problems with the car and noticed lots of dings in the car on all sides.
OK so what do you do? Well I called my insurance man to see what I should do. He in turn asked if I wanted to file a claim and I said let me check to see what it might cost to get the repairs done and he said ok call me once you have the info. Well it took about 2 days to get with a couple of contractors and then a couple of days to get them to come out. See I did not want to have a claim against me if the damages were less than my deductible. That made sense only to me!! When the estimates came back 10 to 15k in damages to the house alone I went to the phone immediately and got them to send out an adjuster. It took a week due to all of the claims for him to get here. Now we are waiting on the contractors to come out and see if they can do the scope of work at an affordable rate for us. $10 to $15k!!
Monday I take in the car too, but I did do one of those drive through dent checkers and they stated about 8500 in damage to the car. Wish me luck on this.
I guess the moral of this story as I can relate it to my neighbor to who is still waiting for a contractor to come out and give an estimate is call your agent first and get the adjuster out quickly.The sooner they release funds the sooner you can get the work completed.
Oh, and one other thing is that if you owe anything on your vehicle or for your home, they will make the check out to both parties with the and in the middle. If you talk to the appraisor they may allow it just to be to you, or if you can give them the contractor you are going to use, they will make it out to both of you rather than you and the lender. Just an FYI
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