A midsized community can reduce hail damage by up to 20% by adopting and enforcing often-overlooked building codes, says a new report by the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center.
The savings could add up to between $4 million and $8 million annually for a town of 50,000, says the University of Pennsylvania's risk-management school. However, most U.S. states lack statewide building codes and instead leave hail-loss mitigation to individual municipalities.
“Usually [hailstorms] don't create the media attention associated with other natural hazards such as tornadoes as few people perish in these storms, but property damage can be as high as tornadoes, and more significantly hail storms happen much more frequently,” says the report.
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
