Insurance agencies pounded with claims after hail storm

KENS 5 witnessed an assembly line of storm victims roll in and out of a Progressive Insurance claim center on Wednesday morning. Some cars had tarp-covered windows and sunroofs, dimpled doors, and shattered windshields.

Tania Cuellar was one of the Helotes storm victims who took her car in first thing in the morning.

“It was baseball size,” Cuellar said. “Every back window in my home is shattered and the sunroof of my vehicle. It was just crazy. There were no rental cars.”

USAA was also overwhelmed with vehicle and property claims. They are shipping in extra rental vehicles from out of state. USAA says that extra staff are manning the phones from now through the weekend. And, for the first time in San Antonio, the company is test launching its $3,000 drone to survey damaged rooftops on Thursday.

“Hopefully to inspect homes faster,” said Kristina Thomasetty, USAA’s strategic innovation director. “They can take 20 minutes to inspect the periphery of the home and take those images and convert into data.”

In the meantime USAA will still have contractors climb and physically inspect homes. Down the road, they say drones will make the process safer and cost effective by slashing inspection times.

USAA is also scrambling to set up pop-up claim locations throughout the city for the more than 15,000 auto claims they’ve received since Tuesday night.

If you are a USAA customer looking to make a claim, you can download the app at http://mobile.usaa.com , go to their website http://USAA.com/help  or call them at 800-531-8722.