Mississippi Insurance Agency, Like Others Hit by Storms, Vows to Rebuild After Tornado
For the third time in the last 18 months, tornadoes or a hurricane have wiped out or have heavily damaged well-established insurance agencies in the Southeast.
And all three of those agencies have rebuilt their businesses or have vowed to bounce back quickly.
In the latest disaster, Farm Bureau’s agency in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, was ripped to shreds by an estimated EF-4 tornado that hit the Mississippi Delta town late last week.
“Our office is gone. Totally demolished,” said Leslie Stephenson, manager of the 49-year-old agency on Blues Highway in Rolling Fork, a town of about 2,000 people. “But we’re going to be all right. We’re going to rebuild. The building was there for 49 years, so we’re going to rebuild it to last for at least another 50 years in the future.”
Stephenson said that Farm Bureau Insurance, one of the largest property and casualty insurers in the state, quickly brought in a mobile claims unit after the tornado struck Friday night. Despite losses to the office and their own property, agency employees handled more than 360 claims from other residents in the area and wrote insurance checks on the spot.
“We wrote checks all morning long,” Stephenson said.
About half of the claims were for vehicles and half were for property damage. “And almost all of them were total losses,” she said.
The agency was among more than 2,000 businesses and homes in the state that were heavily damaged by the tornado, which had winds as high as 160 mph and also hit tiny Silver City, nearby. At least 21 people were killed in the area. News reports showed entire blocks almost wiped clean by the twister, leaving nothing but building foundations and scattered belongings. It’s been called the deadliest tornado to hit Mississippi in more than 20 years.
President Biden approved a major disaster declaration for four counties, allowing federal aid to assist in recovery.
Two states to the north, in Kentucky, one of the largest insurance agencies in the state saw its Mayfield office destroyed by a tornado in December, 2021. Within weeks, the 99-year-old Peel & Holland agency had moved to new digs and continued to process more than $60 million in claims from the storm, said Roy Riley, president of the firm.
To the south, Lee County Insurance Agency in North Fort Myers, Florida, was flooded during Hurricane Ian in September 2022. The home of agency owner John Gardner also was heavily damaged.
Today, the agency is still working out of a temporary office space while the firm continues to rebuild its original location, an office worker said Tuesday.
Systems that spawn storms like the ones that have hit agencies and their clients may become more common as the planet warms, according to a study by researchers at Northern Illinois University.
Top photo: What was left of Chuck’s Dairy Bar in Rolling Fork. The business was right next door to Leslie Stephenson’s Farm Bureau Insurance agency, which was also demolished by the tornado. (AP Photo/Rogelio Solis)