What 2025 actually did to Missouri, in sourced numbers
Storm statistics in this trade are close to worthless, because the impressive ones get copied without a source until nobody can say where they came from. Every figure on this page names the body that published it. The section at the bottom lists the figures we found circulating and refused to print.
Two rankings, two different measurements
Missouri appears near the top of two national hail lists and they are not the same list. The Insurance Information Institute, drawing on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center record, ranks Missouri fifth nationally for major hail events, with 253 of them in 2025. Separately, State Farm has ranked Missouri second among states by hail claim dollars paid.
One counts weather. The other counts one insurer's money. They overlap in subject and in nothing else, and combining them produces a sentence that sounds authoritative and describes nothing real. You will see them merged. It is worth noticing who does it.
The reporting density problem
Severe weather counts are counts of reports. A hailstone that falls on a soybean field with nobody watching does not enter the record, and one that falls on a suburb with fifty thousand smartphones does. Reporting density tracks population, which means county level hail counts are partly a measurement of hail and partly a measurement of how many people live there to report it. This does not make the numbers useless. It makes them a floor rather than a census, and anybody presenting them as a precise ranking of risk between two counties is overreading them.
The single worst event of the season
The tornado of 16 May 2025 in the St. Louis area was rated EF3 by the National Weather Service, with estimated winds of 152 miles per hour. It began near Clayton at 2:41 in the afternoon and tracked 22.6 miles. At its widest it was 1.8 miles across, the widest tornado in the region's record, which runs back to 1950. Five people were killed. NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information put the damage from it at $1.6 billion.
The federal declaration that followed, DR-4877-MO, covered St. Louis City and St. Louis County. It produced 9,427 individual assistance approvals, $58.13 million in individuals and households programme funding and $105.01 million in public assistance.
Rating and wind speed: National Weather Service. Damage figure: NOAA NCEI. Federal assistance figures: FEMA. These are separate bodies and separate methodologies and are cited separately on purpose.
What we found circulating and would not print
Four figures turned up repeatedly on Missouri roofing and restoration sites while this page was being written. None of them could be traced to the body they were attributed to. They are described here rather than repeated, because repeating a number in order to debunk it is still publishing the number, and it will be quoted back out of context within a week.
- A claim count and a dollar total attributed to the state insurance department Widely reproduced, and absent from that department's own published material. The department's real figures are at the top of this page and they are considerably larger.
- A count of federal disaster declarations said to be the highest of any state in 2025Repeated with confidence and without a source anywhere we could find.
- A Missouri specific loss estimate attributed to a catastrophe modelling firm That firm publishes national and regional estimates. The state level figure being quoted does not appear in them.
- A named tornado through several north St. Louis County municipalities in spring 2026Described as fact on several sites, absent from the storm record.
If you can produce a primary source for any of these, the corrections route is on the about page and the page will be updated.
What the numbers mean for a homeowner
Three practical things, and none of them is "call now".
- Capacity, not weather, decides your timeline after a big eventWhen a quarter of a million catastrophic claims land in one season, the constraint is adjusters and crews rather than materials. Expect the file to move slowly and plan your deadlines, particularly the depreciation one, around that rather than around optimism.
- The out of state crews arrive with the storm and leave before the warranty mattersThe count of roofing companies in a Missouri metro rises steeply after a major hail event. Several of those companies will not exist in three years, which is roughly when a bad installation starts leaking.
- A busy season is when the misinformation peaksEverything on the myths page circulates hardest in the eight weeks after a storm, because that is when a homeowner is deciding fast with a tarp on the roof.
Documentation, in your name, whether or not you hire anyone
Keys Roofing is a roofing, gutter and downspout company working in greater St. Louis, and that is the only part of Missouri it can send anyone to. If your house is outside that radius, use the guide and hire locally. Nothing here changes based on where you live.
What an inspection produces is a set of photographs, slope by slope measurements and a written scope of the work the roof needs. You keep that file. If there is a claim in your story, the claim stays in your name and in your hands: under RSMo 407.725 a Missouri roofing contractor shall not represent or negotiate an owner's insurance claim, and Keys does not. The contractor's job is to document the roof accurately and to be on the roof as the contractor when the adjuster inspects it.
Ask for a roof inspection
Goes to Keys Roofing. Greater St. Louis only. No obligation, and no part of this form asks anything about your policy limits.
Nothing you type here is sent to any insurer, and nobody from Keys will contact one on your behalf.