Tornadoes, Hail Key Concerns for Homeowners, Businesses

In the wake of the April 27 tornado that ripped through central Arkansas and killed 16 people, state insurance commissioner Jay Bradford is urging people to revisit their insurance policies to make sure they and their homes are properly protected in the event of a natural disaster.

Having toured the wreckage in Vilonia and Mayflower, Bradford said he knows how important it is to have a policy in place in the event of a catastrophe.

“It’s not an arduous task and you can do it in about 15 minutes,” he said. “After it’s blown away, it’s too late. People need to sit down with their agent and talk to them about what they need to have.”

It’s also important to maintain a list of personal possessions inside the home, Bradford said. While the state offers a printable inventory sheet found at the Arkansas Insurance Department website, a free mobile application for iPhone and Android is also available.

Offered by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the app, MyHome Scr.APP.book, lets users capture images, descriptions, bar codes and serial numbers of personal possessions and to organize the information room-by-room.

Another recurrent storm-related issue relates to the automobile. Though lending institutions require full coverage on cars with a note, vehicles that are paid off only require liability insurance. In the event of a tornado, a vehicle needs comprehensive insurance if it is to be protected.

“If you think your car is covered just because it’s in the garage, it’s not,” Bradford said.

The April 27 tornado destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in Pulaski, Faulkner and White counties, many of them worth six figures. The majority of the damage was reported in Vilonia and Mayflower. At the request of U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., President Barack Obama visited the affected areas May 7. Former President Bill Clinton visited the sites on May 4.

Limited Local Threat

Since January 1996, there have been 17 reported tornadoes in Benton County, 14 in Washington County and 20 in neighboring Delaware County in Oklahoma, according to the National Climatic Data Center. None of the tornadoes in Benton and Washington counties were as powerful as the one in Vilonia, which was registered as an EF4.

A 2010 tornado that touched down in Cincinnati in western Washington County, registered as an EF3 and killed four people, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

In this region, tornadoes are always a worry, but a much greater threat, at least in terms of wide-ranging property damage, is hail, said Mike Luttrell, vice president of Walker Brothers Insurance of Springdale.

The hail storms that pelted Washington and Benton counties in April 2011 damaged hundreds, even thousands of homes, automobiles and businesses, keeping agents and contractors busy for weeks.

In times of confusion and turmoil, Luttrell said, business owners and those who own commercial real estate need to be able answer two basic questions: “Do you know how to reach your local agent and do you have a backup plan?”

Luttrell said that, for the most part, businesses have appropriate coverage for their buildings, but another type of coverage receives much less attention: Business income insurance. Under such policies, retail operations are compensated for the time in which they lose revenue due to damage to their place of business, or a landlord is compensated for the loss of rents during a disaster.

“From a buildings perspective, everything seems to be OK,” Luttrell said. “But what a lot of people still say is, ‘I don’t know if I want that business income insurance.’”