While insurers indicated that it is too early to estimate losses resulting from the recent tornado activity in five southern states, State Farm reported that it has already received claims from around 2,500 policyholders in Tennessee and Kentucky.
“We are certainly mobilizing in the area,” said State Farm spokesman Fraser Engerman. “We have members of our National Catastrophe Services team on the ground in Kentucky and Tennessee in addition to our agents and employees who are based there permanently.”
Mr. Engerman said he did not yet have an estimate on what losses would be with respect to dollar amounts, and he did not know the extent of property destruction. “Keep in mind it's so very early,” he said.
Speaking to the destruction wrought by the tornadoes, Jim Guidone, a national Red Cross spokesman, described the damage at Union University, in Jackson, Tennessee. “The damage there was extensive,” Mr. Guidone said, noting that 50 percent of eight to 10 dorms were “totally destroyed,” in addition to 100 or so cars.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) said in a statement that the damage at Union University has displaced around 1,000 students, but did not result in any casualties. In nine counties throughout the state, TEMA reported 26 fatalities and more than 100 injuries.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has reported seven fatalities and damage in four counties in Kentucky as well as damage in three Memphis-area counties in Mississippi.
On Thursday state emergency agencies listed more than 700 homes as destroyed in the five states of Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.
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