The sirens went off at 4:37 PM on May 28, 2024. If you were in McKinney that day, you remember exactly where you were when that EF-2 tornado touched down near Stonebridge Ranch and carved its path through northeast McKinney. Homes that had stood for decades were suddenly missing roofs. Trees that shaded driveways every summer were lying across living rooms. And thousands of McKinney homeowners learned a hard lesson about what their insurance policies actually covered.
If you’re reviewing your McKinney home insurance after last year’s storm, call Schell Insurance at (972) 423-4546. We’ve been helping Collin County families navigate tornado claims and coverage gaps since 1930, and we know exactly what changed after May 28.
Here’s what every McKinney homeowner needs to understand about home insurance in 2025, now that we’ve all seen what North Texas storms can really do.
The McKinney Tornado Changed How Insurance Companies Look at Collin County
Insurance underwriters sit in offices far from Texas and look at data. Before May 28, 2024, McKinney was considered a relatively low-risk area for severe weather compared to areas further south and west. That changed the moment the National Weather Service confirmed an EF-2 tornado with 130 mph winds caused over $150 million in insured losses across McKinney.
Suddenly, every carrier writing homeowners policies in Collin County started reevaluating their risk models. Premium increases followed. Some carriers stopped writing new policies in certain ZIP codes. Others increased deductibles for wind and hail coverage specifically.
This isn’t unique to McKinney. It’s happening across North Texas. But McKinney homeowners are seeing it more acutely because the tornado put a spotlight on our area that wasn’t there before.
What Actually Happened with Those Tornado Claims
We helped dozens of families through their tornado claims in the months after May 28. The experiences varied wildly, and that variation taught us some critical lessons about what matters in a homeowners policy.
Some families had their roofs replaced within six weeks. Others fought with their insurance companies for eight months over depreciation, matching issues, and coverage limits. The difference wasn’t luck. The difference was in the details of their policies that nobody thinks about until it’s too late.
The biggest problems we saw weren’t with whether the tornado damage was covered. Wind damage from a tornado is pretty clearly covered under standard homeowners policies. The problems came from the limitations and sub-limits buried in those policies that nobody reads until they’re living in a hotel wondering when they can go home.
Replacement Cost vs Actual Cash Value Matters More Than You Think
Here’s something that shocked a lot of McKinney homeowners last year. Having replacement cost coverage on your dwelling doesn’t automatically mean you have replacement cost coverage on everything.
Your roof might be covered at actual cash value, which means the insurance company depreciates it based on age. If your roof was 12 years old when the tornado hit, and your policy had ACV coverage for the roof, the insurance company calculated what a 12-year-old roof is worth today, not what it costs to replace it with a new roof.
That’s a difference of thousands of dollars that comes straight out of your pocket.
After the tornado, we saw families with $300,000 homes who thought they had great coverage discover they owed $8,000 to $12,000 out of pocket just to get their roof replaced because of depreciation. They had insurance. They paid their premiums. But the type of coverage they had didn’t match what they actually needed.
Now in 2025, this is even more critical because roofing costs in McKinney have increased. The demand from storm damage across North Texas has driven up labor costs, and material costs haven’t decreased either. If you’re still carrying actual cash value coverage on your roof, you’re setting yourself up for a massive out-of-pocket expense when the next storm hits.
And there will be a next storm. That’s not pessimism, that’s North Texas reality.
The Matching Problem That Nobody Warns You About
Let’s say the tornado damaged the north and west sides of your roof, but the south and east sides were fine. Your insurance company agrees to replace the damaged portions. Great, right?
Not necessarily. If your shingles were discontinued or if the color has been phased out, you can’t match the new shingles to the old ones. Now you’ve got a patchwork roof that looks terrible and hurts your home’s value. Some policies include matching coverage that will pay to replace the entire roof even if only part was damaged, specifically to avoid this problem.
Most policies don’t include this coverage automatically. It’s an endorsement you have to add.
We saw this play out dozens of times after the McKinney tornado. Families who thought they were getting their roofs fixed ended up with homes that looked like they were wearing two different shoes. When they tried to sell a few years later, appraisers noted the mismatched roofing and it affected their home values.
The cost to add matching coverage to your policy? Usually between $20 and $50 per year. The cost of having a mismatched roof? Thousands in lost home value.
Extended Replacement Cost Became Essential Overnight
Standard homeowners policies cover your home up to the dwelling limit you selected. If you insured your home for $350,000 and it costs $350,000 to rebuild it, you’re fine. But what if it costs $385,000 to rebuild it?
After the McKinney tornado, we saw exactly this scenario happen repeatedly. The surge in demand for contractors, roofers, and construction materials drove costs up across the board. Homes that were adequately insured in April 2024 were underinsured by June 2024 simply because of market conditions.
Extended replacement cost coverage typically adds an additional 25% or 50% above your dwelling limit. So if your home is insured for $350,000 and you have 25% extended replacement cost, your actual coverage is $437,500. That buffer can make the difference between fully rebuilding your home and having to dip into your retirement savings to cover the gap.
This coverage costs more than basic replacement cost, but after watching families struggle to cover rebuilding gaps last year, we now recommend it to virtually every McKinney homeowner. The risk of underinsurance in our current construction market is too high to ignore.
Your Deductible Strategy Needs to Match McKinney Weather Reality
Before the tornado, a lot of McKinney homeowners were carrying percentage-based deductibles to save money on premiums. A 2% deductible on a $300,000 home means you pay the first $6,000 of any claim. That’s manageable for many families.
But after seeing what a real tornado does, some of those same families are rethinking that strategy. When you’re facing $40,000 in repairs, a $6,000 deductible is one thing. When you’re facing $150,000 in repairs because half your house was destroyed, that same $6,000 deductible feels different.
The question isn’t really about the percentage. The question is whether you have $6,000 in accessible savings to cover that deductible if something happens tomorrow. If the answer is no, or if paying that deductible would create serious financial hardship, you need a lower deductible even if it means higher premiums.
We’re seeing more McKinney homeowners move to flat deductibles like $2,500 or even $1,000 for wind and hail specifically. Yes, the premiums are higher. But the peace of mind of knowing you can actually afford to file a claim if you need to is worth it.
Additional Living Expenses Coverage Became Real for Hundreds of Families
One aspect of homeowners insurance that most people never think about is additional living expenses coverage, sometimes called loss of use coverage. This pays for you to live somewhere else while your home is being repaired after a covered loss.
After the McKinney tornado, families who had significant damage couldn’t live in their homes. They moved into hotels, short-term rentals, extended-stay properties. Some were displaced for weeks. Others for months.
Additional living expenses coverage paid for those accommodations, but only up to the policy limits. Standard policies typically include 20% to 30% of your dwelling coverage for ALE. On a $300,000 home, that’s $60,000 to $90,000.
Sounds like a lot, right? Now do the math. If you’re paying $3,500 a month for a short-term rental because hotels are full and demand is high, that $90,000 covers about 25 months. But if the repair work takes 18 months because contractors are backed up across the entire region, and your monthly costs are even higher because you have pets or specific needs, you can burn through that coverage faster than you’d expect.
We had families hit their ALE limits before their homes were ready. They either had to move back into partially completed homes or pay out of pocket to continue their temporary housing. Neither option was good.
The lesson? Look at your ALE coverage limits and think about what it would realistically cost to house your family in the McKinney area for 12 to 18 months if your home was seriously damaged. If your coverage doesn’t come close, talk to your agent about increasing it.
The Code Upgrade Coverage Gap That Caught People Off Guard
Building codes change over time. Electrical standards change. Plumbing requirements change. Energy efficiency requirements change. When you’re rebuilding a home after major damage, you have to bring everything up to current code, not the code that existed when your home was originally built.
If your home was built in 1998 and you’re rebuilding in 2024, there’s a lot that has to be upgraded. Those upgrades cost money, sometimes substantial money.
Standard homeowners policies typically don’t cover the cost to upgrade to current building codes. That’s an additional coverage called ordinance or law coverage that has to be added separately. Without it, you pay out of pocket for all the code upgrades required to rebuild.
After the McKinney tornado, we saw homeowners with older homes in areas like Stonebridge Ranch and adriatic Village face unexpected costs of $15,000 to $30,000 just for code upgrades. Electrical panel upgrades, plumbing modifications, energy efficiency requirements, structural reinforcements – it all added up fast.
Most carriers offer ordinance or law coverage as an endorsement, typically covering 10% to 25% of your dwelling limit. On a $300,000 home, 25% ordinance or law coverage gives you $75,000 for code upgrades. That’s usually enough to handle whatever’s required.
The cost for this coverage is minimal compared to the out-of-pocket expense if you need it. We’re now recommending it to every McKinney homeowner, especially those with homes built before 2010.
How Insurance Companies Changed Their Approach to McKinney After May 28
The tornado didn’t just affect homeowners. It affected how insurance companies underwrite policies in McKinney and surrounding areas. We’ve seen several significant changes in the past year that every McKinney homeowner should understand.
First, some carriers stopped writing new homeowners policies in certain McKinney ZIP codes, particularly in areas that took direct hits from the tornado. If you’re moving to McKinney or buying a home in one of these areas, your insurance options may be more limited than they were two years ago.
Second, carriers that are still writing new business have increased premiums across the board. Even if your home wasn’t damaged in the tornado, your renewal premium likely increased because the overall risk profile for McKinney changed in the eyes of underwriters.
Third, wind and hail deductibles have increased for many policies. Where you might have had a $2,500 deductible for all perils before, you might now have a 2% deductible specifically for wind and hail, which is higher on most homes.
Fourth, carriers are being much more strict about roof age and condition. If your roof is over 15 years old, some carriers won’t write a new policy without a roof inspection, and some won’t write the policy at all without a roof replacement. Even for renewals, carriers are starting to require roof inspections and condition reports.
None of this is unique to McKinney, but the May 28 tornado accelerated these trends in Collin County faster than in other areas.
What This Means for Your Coverage Right Now
If you haven’t reviewed your McKinney homeowners insurance policy since before the tornado, you need to do it now. Not next month. Not when your renewal comes up. Now.
Here’s what you should be looking for in your current policy. Do you have replacement cost coverage on your dwelling and your personal property, or is something limited to actual cash value? What’s your extended replacement cost percentage, if any? What are your deductibles, both for general perils and specifically for wind and hail? How much additional living expenses coverage do you have? Do you have ordinance or law coverage? Do you have matching coverage for things like roofing and siding?
If you can’t answer these questions off the top of your head, you don’t know what you’re actually covered for. And if another storm comes through McKinney tomorrow, you’re going to find out the hard way what your policy does and doesn’t cover.
The other thing you need to look at is your dwelling coverage limit. Is your home insured for enough to actually rebuild it at today’s construction costs? Not what it would have cost to rebuild it in 2020 or 2022, but what it would cost right now in 2025 with current labor and material costs in North Texas.
A lot of McKinney homeowners are underinsured and don’t realize it. They set their coverage limits years ago and never increased them, or they let their insurance company automatically calculate the dwelling limit based on square footage and basic characteristics. Those automatic calculations are often wrong, especially in areas like McKinney where home values and construction costs have increased significantly.
The Reality of Shopping for Better Coverage
After the tornado, a lot of McKinney homeowners started shopping around for better insurance coverage or lower premiums. That makes sense. But here’s what they discovered – shopping for homeowners insurance in McKinney in 2025 is different than it was in 2023.
Your options are more limited. Fewer carriers are willing to write policies in certain areas. The carriers that are writing policies are pricing them higher. And if your home has any issues – an older roof, previous claims, certain construction types – you might find that your options are very limited.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shop around. It means you need to work with an independent agent who has access to multiple carriers and knows which ones are actually writing business in McKinney right now. Calling around to individual companies or getting quotes online might work in some markets, but in post-tornado McKinney, you need someone who understands the local market and has established relationships with carriers.
We represent over 30 different insurance carriers. When a carrier stops writing new business in McKinney or increases their rates significantly, we can move our clients to other options. When underwriting requirements change, we know which carriers have the most flexible guidelines. When someone has a unique property or situation, we know which carriers will actually consider it.
That’s the value of working with an independent agency that’s been in Collin County for nearly a century. We’ve seen markets harden before. We’ve helped homeowners through major storms before. We know how to navigate this.
Flood Insurance Deserves Its Own Conversation Now
The May 28 tornado came with heavy rain. A lot of McKinney homeowners discovered that wind-driven rain causing water damage through damaged roofs and walls was covered under their homeowners policy. That’s good.
But what about flooding? Not rain coming through a tornado-damaged roof, but actual flooding from water rising and entering your home. That’s not covered under any standard homeowners policy. Never has been, never will be. You need a separate flood insurance policy through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood carrier.
McKinney isn’t known as a high-flood-risk area, but parts of McKinney absolutely can flood. Areas near Wilson Creek, Honey Creek, and Rowlett Creek have flood risk. Areas near Towne Lake and other retention areas have flood risk. And with the development boom in McKinney, drainage patterns are changing as more land gets paved over.
After the tornado, we had more McKinney homeowners asking about flood insurance than in the previous five years combined. They saw what water damage looks like. They saw how expensive it is to repair. And they started thinking about what would happen if flooding was the cause instead of tornado damage.
Flood insurance through the NFIP is relatively affordable in most of McKinney because most areas aren’t in high-risk flood zones. We’re talking a few hundred dollars a year for meaningful coverage in many cases. Private flood insurance is often even more affordable for homes outside high-risk zones.
The key is getting the coverage before you need it. Flood insurance has a 30-day waiting period, so you can’t buy it when a storm is coming and have it take effect immediately. You need to plan ahead.
What You Should Be Asking Your Insurance Agent Today
If you’re working with an insurance agent in McKinney, you should be having a specific conversation with them about your homeowners coverage. Here are the questions you need to ask.
Is my dwelling coverage limit adequate to rebuild my home at current construction costs in McKinney? Do I have replacement cost coverage on both my dwelling and my personal property? What’s my extended replacement cost percentage? Do I have ordinance or law coverage, and if so, how much? Do I have matching coverage for roofing and siding? What are my deductibles for wind and hail specifically? How much additional living expenses coverage do I have, and how long would that last if I had to move out for an extended period?
If your agent can’t answer these questions clearly and confidently, that’s a problem. These aren’t obscure policy details. These are fundamental coverage questions that directly affect what happens if you have a major claim.
You should also ask about your premium and whether there are ways to reduce it without sacrificing essential coverage. Things like increasing your deductible for non-weather-related claims, bundling your home and auto insurance, adding protective device discounts if you have a security system or storm shutters, maintaining a claims-free history – these can all impact your premium.
But the focus should be on having the right coverage first and then finding ways to make it affordable. The opposite approach – choosing coverage based only on price – is how people end up with inadequate insurance that fails them when they need it most.
The McKinney Market Will Keep Changing
Here’s the reality going forward. The insurance market in McKinney isn’t going to go back to how it was before May 28, 2024. That tornado fundamentally changed how insurance companies view risk in Collin County. Premiums are higher. Underwriting is stricter. Coverage is more expensive.
This isn’t temporary. This is the new normal, at least for the foreseeable future. And if we have another major storm in McKinney or elsewhere in Collin County, it’s going to get even more challenging.
What you can control is making sure you have the right coverage for your specific home and situation. You can’t control insurance company underwriting policies or premium increases across the market. But you can control whether your home is adequately insured with the endorsements and coverages that matter most after we’ve all seen what North Texas storms can do.
We’ve been through market hardening before. We helped McKinney homeowners through the hailstorms in the 1990s. We helped them through the tornado in 2007. We helped them through the unprecedented freeze in 2021. And we helped dozens of families through the May 28, 2024 tornado.
Every time, the market changes afterward. Carriers adjust their approach. Premiums increase. Underwriting gets tighter. And then eventually, things stabilize. We’ll get there again, but it takes time.
Don’t Wait Until the Next Storm to Fix Your Coverage
The absolute worst time to discover you don’t have the right homeowners insurance is when you’re filing a claim. By then, it’s too late to add coverage or increase limits. You’re stuck with whatever you had in place when the damage occurred.
The best time to review and improve your coverage is right now, when your home is fine and you have time to make informed decisions without pressure. Look at what happened to your neighbors and friends after the May 28 tornado. Learn from their experiences. Make sure your coverage is better prepared for the next storm.
Because there will be a next storm. McKinney is in North Texas. We get severe weather. We get tornadoes, hailstorms, windstorms, and occasional flooding. It’s part of living here, just like the heat in summer and the occasional ice storm in winter.
You can’t prevent the storms. But you can make sure you’re properly insured when they hit.
Ready to review your McKinney home insurance after everything we learned from the 2024 tornado? Call Schell Insurance at (972) 423-4546. We’ve been protecting Collin County homes for over 95 years, and we helped dozens of McKinney families navigate their tornado claims last year. We know exactly what coverage matters and what doesn’t. Let’s make sure your home is properly protected before the next storm hits, because in North Texas, it’s not a question of if, but when.