Damage from Sunday night’s hailstorm is rolling into a converted tire shop in the Lawrence Auto Plaza, once every 12 minutes.

There, State Farm Insurance is packing in appointments – having brought in 60 adjusters from out of state – to assess and compensate clients who had hail crack their windshields, ding their hoods or even shatter their side mirrors and other trim.

Checks – average claim: $3,000 – are cut on the spot, unless clients want adjusters to arrange for repairs. State Farm is counting on receiving about 600 auto claims from the Lawrence area, enough to justify setting up a temporary “cat” center, a regular occurrence for an insurance catastrophe of such magnitude.

That’s a $1.8 million hit on the auto side alone.

“On the hail line, they can set up appointments every 12 minutes,” said Sarah Dillmon, who works in the Lawrence office of agent Bob Carlson. “They bring the car in, put it under the fluorescent lights so that every dent is more visible. You can get everything done right then.

“If they want to take it somewhere and get it fixed, they can. Or if they want to pocket the money, they can.”

Other major insurers were taking similar approaches Thursday. Among them were American Family Insurance, which moved into the parking lot outside the former Moon Bar, northwest of Ninth and Iowa streets; and Farm Bureau Insurance, which set up shop inside Building 1 at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds, on Harper Street in east Lawrence.

The goal: See as many clients as possible, get them their money as quickly as possible and move on to the next concentration center of weather-related claims whenever possible.

“We’re doing about six cars an hour, and we’ll be there as long as we need to be,” said Linda Padden, an American Family spokeswoman.

American Family is expecting to see anywhere from 500 to 600 auto claims in the Lawrence area, plus another 200 to 300 from area homeowners. The company has five adjusters in town for each category.

Such responses to a storm are not surprising, said Charlene Bailey, a spokesperson for the Kansas Insurance Department. Kansas has more hailstorms than any other state in the country, and companies don’t hesitate to take care of business when one of those storms strikes a populated area.

“It’s a supply-and-demand thing,” Bailey said. “The demand is great right now, because there’s been an event. And so they call in help to meet the needs of their customers.”

State Farm, the state’s largest insurer of homes and vehicles in Kansas, estimated that Sunday’s storm will be expected to cost the company $25.5 million in auto claims and another $40 million in homeowners’ claims. That’s because of Lawrence’s damage and an even larger number of damage claims in the Wichita area, Dillmon said.