9NEWS DENVER Reported – “Hail up to the size of baseballs caused widespread hail damage to vehicles and homes around Brighton and Commerce City and other communities in the northeast metro area.” This storm occurred the afternoon of 5/26/2010.

Hail season produces hundreds of thousands of hail damage claims. Many of those claims end up in disagreements between the insurance company and property owners.

One common issue is that the insurance company usually wants to repair or partially replace damaged areas or certain slopes of the roof, where as the property owners want to replace the entire roof.

In a previous post, “Hail Claims Can Be Settled Through Appraisal” we touched on the subject of how to dispute your hail damage claim with the insurance company. Your policy protects you when you have such a disagreement. 

The largest hail stone reported from this Denver storm measured 2.75 inches in diameter or about the size of a baseball.

According to Commerce City, the areas between East 96th Avenue and East 120th Avenue, between Chambers Road and Tower Road, were hit the hardest, with hail diameter ranging between golf ball and baseball size, and accumulations estimated between 6 and 12 inches on the ground.

The city says many homes and vehicles in the Reunion and Fronterra subdivisions were damaged, with holes in the siding and broken windows. Some livestock owners in the area also reported minor injuries to animals caught in the storm.

Winds kicked up in Weld County where a 65 mph gust was reported near Wellington. Golf-ball-size hail was also reported in Timnath and Thornton. Hail 1 inch in diameter fell in Hudson, in Adams County, and Windsor, in Larimer County. Another trained spotter reported egg-sized hail near Commerce City around 1:30 p.m.

High winds or a tornado struck a metal garage outside Windsor Wednesday afternoon and hurled it about 75 yards from its concrete pad. The property owner, Doug Beethe, said the May 2008 tornado touched down in almost the same spot on his property. No one was hurt, but the garage was mangled and its contents strewn across Beethe’s property. “The tornado picked it up off concrete foundation and just threw it into the field,” Beethe said.

The storm was moving from southeast to northwest, Beethe said. That’s unusual for a thunderstorm in Northern Colorado, but similar to the path of the 2008 tornado that caused extensive damage in Windsor. “We get horizontal hail sometimes … but this hail was beating on the south windows,” Beethe said.

9NEWS and the Fort Collins Coloradoan staff contributed to this story.

If you run into a problem settling your hail damage claim you can educate yourself on your options by visiting the page abut the Insurance Appraisal Process.

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