Hail, rain deliver damage and long-term costs to residents

(FOX 9) - A lot of damage has hit homes and cars during the latest series of storms.

It started with hail Friday and all the rain that’s followed.

Monday’s rain was slow and steady, but the heavy hail Friday left its mark and it won’t go away as easily as a simple repair.

By the time hail stopped traffic on I-394 near Theo Wirth Friday evening, dozens of calls had already come in to Dent Heads in Bloomington.

The repair shop was closing for the day, but they knew the job was about to get crazy.

"We were like ‘Holy buckets, this is pretty big,’" said Shawn Moss.

Storms kept windshield wipers on the move Monday after a weekend where puddles got pretty deep on some roads.

But the big concern was the massive chunks of hail falling in parts of the Twin Cities metro and other parts of the state as well.

"I mean there’s some really substantial damage out there," Moss said. "Everyone in the state of Minnesota is going to be very busy whether it’s dent companies such as ours or body shops or roofing and siding."

At Dent Heads, most repairs will run in the thousands.

Damaged roofs on homes are usually even more expensive. So insurance agents are also in high demand.

Mitchell McNamara says it feels like weather events are keeping them busier now than ever before.

"We’ve been seeing more claims, especially every other year it seems like there’s one big storm that comes through and rips through the state," he said. "But now it feels like we have two or three of those every year."

McNamara says insurers are responding by changing the way they do business, including raising rates by 20% or more as a result.