West Des Moines Home Insurance for Wind and Hail: What Homeowners Should Know
West Des Moines home insurance normally covers wind and hail damage, but the wind and hail deductible, the roof’s age, and whether the roof is paid at replacement cost or actual cash value decide how much you actually receive after a storm. Homeowners should look beyond premium alone when comparing coverage, because water backup and storm settlement terms can also change what a claim pays. The key takeaway is simple: understand how the policy responds before severe weather puts it to the test.
That point came through clearly in Episode 5 of Fully Covered, “What’s the Best Local Insurance Agency for Bundling Home and Auto in West Des Moines?”, hosted by Mike Downer and featuring Jeff Eastvold and Dan Bell, President and CEO and Vice President of Absolute Insurance Agency, an independent insurance agency in Clive, Iowa, serving West Des Moines and the wider Des Moines metro. Their discussion covered bundling, carrier differences, and local weather risks, with one consistent message: the cheapest policy is not always the strongest policy.
Why Are Wind and Hail Important Risks in West Des Moines?
Wind and hail matter because they can cause serious damage to roofs, siding, windows, vehicles, and other property.
Dan Bell described Iowa as a “wind and hail state,” and he named West Des Moines, Grimes, Johnston, and Ankeny as areas that “seem to get hail quite a bit.” He added that storms appear to have become “more consistent and more damaging than before,” and Jeff Eastvold agreed that “the severity has increased.”
The Iowa Insurance Division explains that homeowners insurance commonly covers losses caused by windstorms and hail, subject to the policy’s terms.
That last part matters. Two policies may both list wind and hail as covered risks, yet still differ in deductibles, roof settlement terms, exclusions, and limits.
Homeowners should ask how the policy pays, not just whether the peril appears on the coverage list.
How Can Roof Age Affect Home Insurance?
An older roof can affect pricing, carrier eligibility, and how a future roof claim is settled.
Dan Bell explained that a carrier that makes the most sense when a roof is brand new may no longer be an option once the roof reaches the 20-year point.
Homeowners should understand two basic terms:
- Replacement cost generally reflects the cost to replace damaged covered property without subtracting depreciation, subject to policy terms.
- Actual cash value generally accounts for depreciation when determining the value of damaged property.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners recommends understanding whether property is insured at replacement cost or actual cash value and reviewing the deductible that applies after a claim.
Some insurers may also use roof payment schedules that reduce how much is paid as a roof gets older. That is why a lower premium does not always mean better value.
Why Should You Review Your Wind and Hail Deductible?
Your wind and hail deductible determines how much you may need to pay out of pocket before insurance responds to a covered storm loss.
Some policies use a separate deductible for wind or hail rather than the standard deductible used for other claims.
The NAIC notes that certain homeowners policies can include separate windstorm or wind and hail deductibles.
That difference can be significant after a major storm.
A policy with a slightly lower premium may look attractive until you discover that the storm deductible is much higher. Absolute Insurance Agency’s approach is to compare the premium and the deductible together instead of treating one number as the whole story.
What Other Coverage Gaps Can a Policy Review Find?
A policy review can uncover both missing coverage and insurance you may no longer need.
Jeff Eastvold gave a practical example during the podcast. Absolute Insurance Agency sometimes finds jewelry still scheduled on policies even though the owner sold or gave it away years ago. Household details can also become outdated as children move out, vehicles change, or property is added.
The reverse can happen too. A homeowner may have a meaningful risk that is not properly covered.
Water backup is one example. The Iowa Insurance Division notes that water and sewer backup coverage is not automatically part of a regular homeowners policy and needs a special endorsement.
A good review is not about buying every available add-on. It is about making sure the policy still matches the home, property, and household you have today.
Why Does Comparing Multiple Carriers Matter?
Different insurance companies can evaluate the same household differently, so one carrier may be strong for the home while another is more competitive for auto or other coverage.
That is where an independent agency can help.
Absolute Insurance Agency can compare multiple carriers instead of being limited to one company. That allows the team to evaluate home and auto together, separate them when appropriate, and consider additional policies for boats, motorcycles, RVs, or umbrella liability.
This flexibility becomes especially useful when a household has an older roof, young drivers, prior claims, recreational vehicles, or other underwriting factors.
The goal is not to collect the most discounts. It is to find the best overall combination of price and protection.
Is the Cheapest Home Insurance Policy Usually the Best?
No. A lower premium may save money upfront, but homeowners should compare what the policy will actually provide after a covered loss.
The Iowa Insurance Division advises consumers to look for savings while also warning against becoming underinsured simply to lower the premium.
That gets to the heart of the podcast discussion.
Price matters. Coverage matters too.
For homeowners reviewing West Des Moines home insurance wind and hail protection, the better choice is the policy that balances cost with deductibles, limits, roof settlement terms, and coverage you understand.
Watch the Full Episode of Fully Covered
Watch the full episode of Fully Covered on YouTube to hear Dan Bell and Jeff Eastvold talk through hail risk, roof payment schedules, and carrier differences. To see how your own policy would respond to the next storm, request a quote from Absolute Insurance Agency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Homeowners Insurance Cover Hail Damage in Iowa?
Homeowners insurance commonly covers hail damage, subject to the policy’s terms. Deductibles, roof age provisions, exclusions, and claim settlement methods can vary by carrier.
Does Homeowners Insurance Cover Wind Damage?
Wind damage is commonly covered under homeowners insurance, but some policies may use a separate wind or wind and hail deductible.
Can an Older Roof Affect My Insurance Options?
Yes. Roof age can affect pricing, carrier eligibility, deductibles, and how a roof claim is settled.
What Is Actual Cash Value on a Roof?
Actual cash value generally accounts for depreciation. An older roof may therefore receive a lower claim payment than it would under applicable replacement cost coverage.
Is Water Backup Included in Every Homeowners Policy?
No. Water or sewer backup may require an endorsement or separate coverage. Homeowners should confirm whether it is included and what limit applies.
Should I Review My Home Insurance Every Year?
Yes. Annual reviews can help identify outdated property details, coverage gaps, changing deductibles, aging roofs, and new household risks.
Why Use an Independent Insurance Agency?
An independent agency can compare multiple carriers rather than offering products from only one company. That can create more flexibility when your pricing, property, drivers, or coverage needs change.
Mike Downer: Hello, everybody. I’m your host, Mike Downer, and welcome to Do You Want Cheap Insurance or to Be Insured? This is brought to you by Absolute Insurance Agency. I’m here with Jeff Eastvold, the president, founder, CEO, and janitor of the company, and also Dan Bell, his trusty vice president and right-hand man. How are we doing today, gentlemen?
Jeff Eastvold: Good.
Dan Bell: Great. How are you?
Mike Downer: I couldn’t be happier if I were twins. I’m ready to learn a little more about insurance and see where else I’m messing up. That’s kind of how these go. It’s always, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” So it’s always informative and good to know.
Dan Bell: Absolutely.
Mike Downer: We’re getting ready for the state fair here in Iowa, and we’re gearing up. I’m ready to learn a little bit about insurance before we go have some fun later on this week.
So, guys, we’ll jump right into this. Today, what we’re going to be covering is: what’s the best local insurance agency for bundling home and auto in West Des Moines?
So I guess the core question is, when someone in West Des Moines wants home and auto with one agency, who should they call and why?
Dan Bell: Clearly, I think they should call Absolute Insurance Agency because we’re the best. Also, because we’re an independent agency that takes the opportunity to get to know our clients and their needs, then put together a comprehensive plan among all of our different carriers to see what’s going to be the best and most affordable option for them.
Mike Downer: Very good. How do the other guys do it? Give me a little breakdown of what sets you apart from everybody else.
Dan Bell: I think what sets us apart is that we’re not transactional. We’re not order takers. What we want to do is get to know the client and see what’s going to work best for them and their needs.
Sometimes we can explore those needs and determine that they have additional areas that need to be covered that they don’t currently have covered, or that they have something insured that possibly is never going to happen to them. In that case, they’re spending money on something that doesn’t need to exist.
Mike Downer: That makes complete sense. Jeff Eastvold, do you have something to add to that?
Jeff Eastvold: Yeah. We find that by doing a comprehensive review, there’s always coverage that comes up, like service line coverage, which is newer. So we try to make recommendations on that.
We’ll also find that people have had their homeowners policy for 10 or 15 years, and they still have jewelry listed that they’ve sold, given away, or don’t have anymore. There are endorsements they might be paying $200 or $300 for that they really don’t need to have.
Mike Downer: So they forgot that Rolex on vacation in Las Vegas, and they’re still insuring it.
Jeff Eastvold: Yep, absolutely. They still have their kids on there, too. Their kids are still being rated on the policy. There are all kinds of mistakes that we find.
Mike Downer: Gotcha. That makes complete sense.
What does bundling actually save a West Des Moines household?
Jeff Eastvold: Probably up to 30%. It depends.
Mike Downer: Dive into that a little bit and explain what bundling is and how it can save.
Jeff Eastvold: Bundling means having your auto and home insurance with the same insurance carrier. That can create a discount. Like I said, it could be up to 30% off each policy.
Mike Downer: Oh, off each policy?
Jeff Eastvold: Yes, off each policy.
Dan Bell: There are other possible benefits to bundling. For instance, a lot of carriers, when you bundle auto and home together, will have a common cause of loss deductible.
For example, let’s say there’s a hail event and both the vehicles and the house are damaged. In that case, the highest deductible would apply to the entire loss, as opposed to having separate deductibles for the vehicle and the house.
Mike Downer: I’m assuming bundling can include your home and auto, but also RVs, boats, and things like that. Can you get into the total bundling process?
Dan Bell: Yes, you can add all of those things into the bundle: auto, home, umbrella, motorcycles, boats, and all the toys.
There are different ways to approach the toys as well, either by adding them directly to a homeowner’s product with some limitations or by putting them on their own separate policy, which expands coverage in most respects.
A lot of the time, the discounts are cumulative and keep piling on top of each other.
Mike Downer: I’m assuming you guys take the time to go over all the different options and scenarios with someone. I have friends who have pretty much every toy under the sun, and I’m sure you’d love to sit down with them and say, “If we put them all here, or if we do these here and this over here,” you go through all those scenarios with people.
Jeff Eastvold: Yeah, we do, because there are different approaches to it. You can run into liability constraints on the homeowners policy for some of those toys, depending on the carrier.
Knowing the ins and outs of each carrier is very important. Sometimes it makes sense to split those things off. Sometimes it makes sense to bundle them together and get those discounts. It just depends.
Dan Bell: Especially because some carriers have special coverages that the homeowners policy might not have. A boat policy, for example, is really designed for boat owners. The same goes for motorcycles or RVs. There are extra coverages you might not think you need until you have a claim.
Mike Downer: Right. That’s what’s nice about going to see Absolute Insurance Agency. You represent several different insurance lines and carriers.
If you go to one specific insurance carrier, I won’t name anyone specific, but if you’re an XYZ insurance carrier, that’s all you can sell. You might not be getting the best option because that agent is going to try to sell you that one company’s products. Am I on track with that?
Dan Bell: Yeah, that’s all they can do. In those scenarios, those are called captive agents. They only have the ability to represent one company, one carrier, and its products.
Thankfully, we’re independent. We represent many different companies that have different appetites and niches, and that independence benefits our clients.
Mike Downer: That’s kind of what I was getting at. If you go to one agent who only has one company, they’re going to push those products on you, and they might not be the best for your scenario.
Dan Bell: Exactly. That’s definitely a round peg in a square hole kind of thing.
Jeff Eastvold: They can’t really affect pricing any more than by decreasing coverage or increasing deductibles because they only have one choice. We’re able to go through multiple companies.
When we do our quoting, we might look at auto and home as a package, auto by itself, home by itself, toys as part of the package, or toys alone. It can get complex.
A good amount of our clients are higher income as well, so umbrella policies are always important. When we do quotes, it can take a while because it’s not just, “Here’s what you get.”
Mike Downer: When you were talking about that, you said you might have auto and home separate. Let me ask you this: is bundling always the right solution?
Jeff Eastvold: No.
Mike Downer: Talk us through that a little bit.
Jeff Eastvold: You could have two companies where one is more competitive on home, and another carrier might be really strong on auto. It doesn’t always work out where bundling is the best option.
Dan Bell: There are a lot of reasons why it might not work out, like Jeff is alluding to. For example, let’s say you have youthful operators. Some carriers are going to rate higher for youthful operators.
Or let’s say there’s a scenario where, if the roof had been brand new, carrier A would make the most sense for bundling. But if the roof is at the 20-year point, that may no longer be an option. Now we have to split things apart and see what’s going to be the best scenario.
It really depends on your situation. The bottom line is the bottom line: how much are you spending in total?
A lot of times people get hung up on discounts. I’ll hear, “Do we have this discount or that discount? Company ABC had these discounts.” The answer might be, “They don’t have those discounts, but you’re paying substantially less one way or the other.” So the bottom line matters most.
Mike Downer: As a home and auto owner, two things matter to me. Number one, how much money do I have to give you every month, every six months, or every year, however often I pay it? And number two, what’s my coverage?
Those are really the only two things that matter to me. I don’t care if the name of the insurance company is Asafras. If it’s good, it’s good. You can put all the commercials on TV that you want and make them look cute and funny, but if I’m not covered at the end of the day and I’m spending too much, none of that matters.
I like the fact that you guys go through each insurance company and find the best option for people.
So let’s say I’m out in West Des Moines. What’s specific about insuring a home in West Des Moines compared to anywhere else in Iowa?
Dan Bell: Iowa, in particular, has turned into a wind and hail state. Your primary cause of loss is most likely going to be wind and hail.
When you get into the suburbs of Des Moines, for whatever reason, you also get into higher water tables. So you run into water backup scenarios quite a bit more in those areas. That’s something to be concerned about and something to make sure you’re insured for.
In particular to West Des Moines, hail does seem to hit certain locations in this area more than others. West Des Moines, Grimes, Johnston, and Ankeny seem to get hail quite a bit.
Mike Downer: I had a car totaled in a hailstorm about three years ago out in West Des Moines.
Dan Bell: Yeah, that particular event was devastating. It happened about 4:30 on a Friday. If I’m remembering right, I think it was August 19. We’re almost nearing the three-year anniversary.
Mike Downer: I have video of small baseball-sized, or at least racquetball-sized, pieces of ice coming down and destroying the glass roof on my car. They said there was $31,000 worth of damage on a $24,000 car. That’s bad math.
Dan Bell: Yeah, they totaled it. They recommended that you not get that fixed.
That was a tremendous storm. I was actually stuck on the interstate because everyone who could stopped underneath the overpasses. I was in Des Moines, so it was smaller hail at that point, approaching the West Des Moines corridor. But yeah, that was wild.
Mike Downer: That storm absolutely annihilated my car. So that was awesome.
Dan Bell: When you get into that scenario, with hail events and wind events, you also get into how carriers adjust the way they handle those situations.
We like to review the concepts of actual cash value, replacement cost, roof payment schedules, and how the policy will respond over time to wind and hail events.
Again, Iowa has always had wind and hail, but it does appear that the events have become more consistent and more damaging than before.
Jeff Eastvold: The severity has increased.
Mike Downer: Agreed.
So let’s say I give you a call, and I’ve made the right choice. I say, “I’m going to call the guys over at Absolute.” What does the bundling quote process look like at your agency?
Dan Bell: When you give us a call, we begin by getting your personal information. That’s going to be primary.
We’ll also set you up in our management system, which will send out an email with a link where you can send us copies of your declaration pages for your current plans.
If the carrier doesn’t have that option, we usually ask to see that information so we can make sure we know what coverage you currently have, what we’re up against, and what we can fix.
Then we broadcast that information across all of our carriers. From there, we get into the laser-surgical analysis of your situation and what our carriers can do for you.
What I do is make a grid on a sheet of paper and literally go through pros and cons. A lot of times, we’ll end up with two or three carriers that come in very similarly. At that point, we provide that information to the client and explain the differences between them: benefit, benefit, benefit, con, con, con. Then we have an intelligent discussion about what’s going to be the best option for them.
As you can tell, this process isn’t something that’s done in 10 minutes.
Mike Downer: Let’s say I give you a call today, and I’m just your average Joe with a couple of cars and a house. What kind of timeframe am I looking at from that first call? Say I’m on it and get you my declaration pages pretty quickly. How long until I can expect a call back from you saying, “Hey, I’ve got some stuff for you to look over”?
Jeff Eastvold: Same day or next day.
Mike Downer: Oh, that quick?
Jeff Eastvold: Yeah.
Dan Bell: Especially when it’s easier and there aren’t claim issues, driving record issues, or underwriting issues. Then it’s pretty easy to get through those.
When things get a little more complicated, that’s where it takes a little longer. It may take a day or two to sift through some things.
Mike Downer: So it should never take longer than a week, for the most part?
Dan Bell: For the most part, unless you run into real issues. For example, older roof claims, a home out in the country, wood-burning stoves, swimming pools, and different things like that. When you add all of that together, you can run into a scenario where it takes a little bit of time to find the best situation for them.
Mike Downer: Perfect. It sounds like you guys are on top of it.
Thanks again, guys. I know the reason we’re talking about this is because everybody watches TV, and everybody hears, “Bundle, bundle, bundle.” I like the fact that you cleared up that yes, it’s a great idea and it can save you money, but not always.
I also like the fact that you represent different insurance carriers, so people don’t just call one agent and say, “Bundle,” because that’s what everybody says to do. I like that you take a consumer-first approach and care about your clients by saying, “This is an option, but maybe not your best option.”
Dan Bell: Exactly.
Mike Downer: All right, guys. I look forward to our next talk. It’s always fun to learn what I’m doing right and wrong about my insurance. Today wasn’t so bad, but I’m sure you guys will get me on something here pretty soon.
Dan Bell: Thanks for having us.
Mike Downer: All right, guys. Have a terrific afternoon. I look forward to our next episode.
Jeff Eastvold: All right, bye.
Dan Bell: Adios.