Largest insurers paid $400 million-plus to state's 2003 tornado victims

The devastation from tornadoes May 4-11, 2003, spawned by a stalled “super cell,” clearly emerged as Missouri’s second-most costly insured disaster ever, ranking behind only the April 2001 hailstorm in St. Louis County that could reach $1 billion in insured losses, according to Lakin in an MDI news release.

The high-volume insurers have written checks for $401.1 million so far and reported almost $3 million in pending claims from the May 2003 tornados and related storms.

Overall, the 30 largest insurers reported 75,385 damage claims that week from all 115 Missouri counties, including St. Louis city. Of those, at least 29,753 affected autos and the remainder – 44,190 – involved structures. Damage to homes and businesses totaled at least $328.5 million.

The May 2003 damage raked the entire state. Lakin said insurance company reports so far indicate that his home area of Clay County suffered the most severe losses, with at least 3,945 building and 2,424 auto claims that yielded payouts of $56.4 million.

Jefferson County, south of St. Louis, registered payments of $38.4 million after a tornado seriously damaged DeSoto.

And the Ozarks had a large concentration of damage in multiple counties with payments reaching $29.5 million in Camden County, $20.3 million in Cedar County, $14 million in Greene County, $9.6 million in Lawrence County and $19 million in Jasper County.

Other large payments included $13.3 million in Jackson County; $19.9 million in Franklin County; $9.1 million in St. Louis County; and $5 million in Lewis County.

Lakin said the totals on losses should climb above a half-billion dollars because the MDI survey did not include:

• Claims paid by more than 100 smaller auto and homeowners insurers in the state and out-of-pocket deductables.

[[In-content Ad]]