Big Insurers Using New Hail Damage-Estimating Technology

Allstate announced Tuesday it had provided automated hail estimating to victims of a recent Colorado hailstorm, the first of the nation’s Big 4 insurers to offer the new technology on the ground. Nationwide, the country’s No. 8 private passenger auto insurer in 2014 with 3.85 percent of the market, had announced in April a similar trailer-size structure was available. (It’s unclear if Allstate or Nationwide was first to roll the device out on the ground in the past.) But Allstate’s size — about 2.5 times larger with $3.53 billion in premiums earned, according to NAIC — should give both collision and paintless dent repairers as well as fellow insurers even greater reason to take notice.