2016 Hailstorms Cost Texas Homeowners $5 Billion
AUSTIN (CBSDFW.COM) - The Texas Department of Insurance last week released information about the state's wind and hail losses from last year, and the results were not good. Homeowner losses from hail were the highest ever recorded, totaling up to more than $5 billion. Losses from wind pushed that amount to nearly $6 billion.
"Last year's hailstorms were relentless," said Mark Hanna, spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas.
The worst storms happened in April and May of last year. Hanna said that 45 of those 61 days saw a hailstorm in some part of the state. "We also experienced the state's costliest hailstorm ever in San Antonio. It was a rough year to say the least," Hanna added.
That storm hit the San Antonio area on April 12, 2016 and resulted in $1.4 billion in damages. The state's previous record had been a hailstorm that struck Fort Worth on May 5, 1995 and saw $1.1 billion in losses. Before the record-shattering numbers of 2016, the state's worst year for hailstorms had been 2015, which left behind $1.9 billion in home damages.
Other than San Antonio, some of last year's worst hailstorms were seen in Arlington, Fort Worth, Wylie, Plano and El Paso. A total of more than 500,000 claims were made across Texas. Wind and hail damage to Texas vehicles also reached a record in 2016 with $1.5 billion in losses.
"Fortunately, so far this year," Hanna said, "the damage hasn't been anything like we have seen the past two years."