Severe thunderstorm leaves damage, widespread outages across Coastal Bend<\/a><\/p>\nIn Flour Bluff, 14-year resident Linda White said she feels fortunate after lightning split a dying tree on her property in half.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally my car is parked out here where these trees are, and I had moved it to behind my building because I had surgery a couple of weeks ago,\u201d White said. \u201cHe protected my car, he protected my body. It\u2019s just a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Insurance experts say homeowners who suffered storm damage should avoid making permanent repairs before documenting everything for a claim.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Waterman, a local Farmers Insurance agent, said homeowners should take photos immediately and avoid altering damaged areas beyond emergency measures like tarping a roof.<\/p>\n
Waterman said one of the most important \u2014 and commonly overlooked \u2014 coverages in the Coastal Bend is wind-driven rain coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wind can actually lift the shingle, drive the water underneath the shingle into the ceiling and down and gets the insides of your home wet and it may not do any damage to your roof itself,\u201d Waterman, who’s worked in the insurance industry for 39 years, said. \u201cWithout this rider, there is not a storm-created opening, so there would be no coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also urged homeowners to check their windstorm deductibles before filing claims.<\/p>\n
According to Waterman, most local homeowners carry deductibles equal to about 2% of their home\u2019s replacement cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is you learn what your windstorm deductible is, and get bids to find out what it\u2019s going to cost to get your fence fixed, tree limbs cleared and other damage repaired,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Another common mistake, Waterman said, is filing under the wrong policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to wait and get a denial letter, and then you realize it was the wrong policy you filed under,\u201d Waterman said. \u201cSo it\u2019s taking longer to get your claims solved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waterman added that the busiest period for wind-related insurance claims in South Texas is typically from January through the end of spring \u2014 not during hurricane season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Sunday night\u2019s storms, insurance experts warn Coastal Bend homeowners to document damage carefully and not make repairs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-288861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}