Aaron Bruton reports 1,000 calls after Springfield Mo hailstorm
springfield mo auto body shops were flooded with calls after Tuesday’s hail storm, and Hammer’s Autoworks on West Chestnut Expressway received more than 1,000 in the past 24 hours. Vice president Aaron Bruton said the shop was also dealing with vehicles already on the lot that were damaged by hail.
Bruton said the storm moved through Springfield around 11:45 a.m. Tuesday and hit his shop directly. Hammer’s tracked between 300 and 500 phone calls between 11:45 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday, and similar call volumes continued Wednesday morning.
Hammer’s Autoworks on West Chestnut
The lot at Hammer’s was covered in broken glass from shattered windshields. Bruton said many of the vehicles damaged in the storm were being pushed toward total loss status because of the extent of the damage.
“The past 24 hours have been very, very chaotic. We weren’t spared, so our own staff was hit with a hailstorm. The largest hailstorm I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lived in Springfield most of my life,” Bruton said. He added, “A lot of these vehicles are becoming a total loss because of the extent of the damage.”
AD Korte Insurance and State Farm
Andrea Korte, owner of AD Korte Insurance, said insurers classified the storm as a cat loss, meaning a catastrophic claim with damage spread across multiple counties. She said catastrophe teams would bring adjusters on foot in the area to try to move claims faster for clients.
“This, actually, by insurance companies, has been determined a cat loss, which means a catastrophic claim, where your damage is saturated throughout multiple counties. So, whenever you have a catastrophic loss, that’s when the catastrophe teams come in. And you have actual adjusters here on foot in our area that are going to try and get things moving quicker for our clients,” Korte said. State Farm representatives said catastrophe teams would be on the ground Thursday in Springfield.
Springfield hail repairs
Bruton said the storm affected a major metropolitan area and would be a very costly event. He also said shops could see repairs tied to the hail for a year, while drivable cars with intact glass would have to be pushed back for safety reasons. For drivers in the shop’s orbit, that means longer waits, more deferred work, and a repair queue that is already full before the first wave clears.
