Dominion resident Larry Sultenfuss has been a loyal USAA customer for nearly a half-century, but he doesn’t know how much longer he’s going to stick with the San Antonio insurer.

Sultenfuss, who worked for USAA right out of college for almost five years, has been unsuccessfully trying to get the company to pay for a new roof on his and wife Marian’s home on Worthsham Drive following an April 13 hailstorm that caused widespread damage in the high-end community.

The Dominion was pummeled by 3-inch hailstones, according to reports to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The hailstones were bigger than a baseball but smaller than a grapefruit.

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The couple’s roof sustained broken tiles from the hail, and was deemed by their adjuster to be “compromised,” meaning it was substantially damaged and needed to be replaced.

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On Wednesday, Sultenfuss said USAA recently offered to pay to replace about half of his roof with custom-made tiles because the existing tiles are no longer manufactured. It originally wanted to replace the broken tiles with about 80 tiles from a Florida salvage yard, he said.

Both proposals are unacceptable to Sultenfuss. He noted a USAA representative left him a voicemail message Tuesday, saying the custom-made tiles should match the existing tiles “fairly well.”

“It doesn’t leave me a lot of hope that we’re going to have a good-looking roof,” Sultenfuss said. “There’s no way you’re going to match a 20-year-old roof.”

His adjuster told him the new tiles for roughly half the roof would cost about the same as replacing the entire roof with tiles now on the market. He put the cost at at about $65,000.

Sultenfuss expressed concern that the value of his home could decline if the tiles don’t match. He’s also worried the tiles won’t meet the approval of the Dominion Homeowners Association’s architectural control committee. Any replacement tiles that are not the same color or style need to be reviewed by the committee.

“It’s just been quite frustrating (dealing with USAA), particularly (given) the fact we’ve been with them 50 years,” he said. “Fifty years of paying premiums, and this is our first claim. First real homeowner’s claim.”

Sultenfuss is among a number of Dominion residents fighting with their insurers to pay for roof replacements. What’s particularly irritating for those homeowners is seeing so many of their neighbors who have gotten new roofs.

At least one Dominion homeowner has sued his insurer for refusing to replace his roof.

On a recent afternoon, roofing equipment and stacks of replacement tiles dotted streets in the Dominion.

As for why the Sultenfusses didn’t get a new roof and their next-door neighbors did, there may be numerous reasons.

Camille Garcia, spokeswoman for the Insurance Council of Texas, an industry trade association, said there’s a randomness to a hailstorm that’s similar to a tornado.

“People see a tornado coming through and skip around from house to house. One is decimated and the next one is not,” Garcia said. “So it’s how did that hail impact the roof? There’s just so many variances. (The insurance policy), how it reads. The adjusters and their training as far as hail damage is concerned. Just the kind of coverage that’s inherent in the policy. Really, there’s so many factors.”

Insurers would note that each claim is reviewed on its own merit, so the outcome of one has no bearing on another.

USAA spokesman Matt Hartwig defended its handling of claims.

“With respect to this hailstorm, we had more than 8,000 claims submitted, and we have successfully resolved 97%,” Hartwig wrote in an email. “While USAA is well known for our outstanding service, we recognize not every claim will be closed to the satisfaction of the member. Each claim is unique and managed according to applicable laws and regulations and the terms of the member’s policy.”

USAA doesn’t generally comment on individual claims “out of respect for the member’s privacy,” Hartwig said.

The Texas Department of Insurance reported receiving 11 complaints related to homeowners insurance from the San Antonio area as a result of the storm. The names of insurers in the complaints weren’t immediately available, however.

As of last month, the Dominion HOA had received 155 applications for roof repairs or replacements since the storm. Homeowners only have to submit an application if they are using a different style or color of tile.

“There are certainly more than that, that just replaced their roof or repaired their roof without submitting an application,” said Rob McDaniel, the HOA’s general manager. “Anecdotally, just based on my daily inspections, there are probably hundreds … with many more yet to come.”

There are about 1,600 homes in the Dominion, though not all of the community was affected by the storm.

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In an October email, the HOA said its covenants generally allow a year to complete major construction or renovation projects. It asked residents to complete hailstorm repairs by this coming April.

“We don’t plan to cite people in any way if they are having difficulties getting work completed within the one-year time frame,” McDaniel said.

The HOA has heard grumblings from residents who are having difficulties with their insurers and “have requested for us to require that their entire roof be replaced,” he added.

Sultenfuss has hired Adam Monaco, a general contractor and insurance adjuster, to help handle the claim with USAA.

Monaco also oversaw work on the house next to Sultenfuss’s. That house got a new roof even though the damage wasn’t as severe as in Sultenfuss’s case, Monaco said.

“How do we do one and not the other?” Monaco said. “They pick winners and losers.”

Sultenfuss and nearby neighbors Craig and Louceyette New, also USAA customers, had the same insurance adjuster from AllCat Claims Services of Boerne handling their claim. USAA contracts with AllCat.

In both instances, the AllCat adjuster recommended that Sultenfuss and the News get a replacement roof, Monaco said. Later, though, USAA essentially overruled the recommendations, Monaco said. He showed texts he had with the adjuster to support the claim regarding the News’ roof.

USAA did not address the issue, and the adjuster did not respond to a request for comment.

The Allcat adjuster recommended the News have their roof replaced after he first determined that the roof could be repaired for a cost of almost $2,800, Craig New said.

Then, in August, USAA sent someone else to inspect the roof. The News described him as a 24-year-old petroleum engineer from Dallas. In his report, he found the roof tiles did “not exhibit any damage attributable to hail or high wind.”

USAA did pay the News to replace carpeting, rugs and a couch when the hailstorm broke a skylight and spewed glass in their living room. It also paid to replace their garage doors.

The News hired an engineering firm to conduct a review of their roof. That firm, Casa Engineering of Harlingen, concluded in November that the roof needed to be replaced. The couple sent a copy of the report to USAA.

“The engineering report received is inconclusive,” the USAA claims representative replied last month. “Our position that the roofing can be repaired still stands.”

The tiles on the News’ roof are no longer manufactured, Craig New said.

“We said we can’t repair it because there’s no one that makes the same size and the same tile that would fit,” he said. “They said, just take good tile from an area that no one can see and just replace the broken tiles with those.

“I’m fed up with a lot of this,” New said. The News plan to pay for a new roof and hope USAA will eventually reimburse them for the estimated $80,000 cost. They will have their contractor submit the invoices for the roof replacement to USAA.

New seethes when he sees a new USAA television commercial airing during football games. The ad touts how quickly USAA responded to a member who experienced hail damage.

“So when a hailstorm hit, USAA reached out even before he could inspect the damage,” says the ad, which shows the member getting a new roof. “With hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started.”

New recently requested to go through an appraisal process, where an adjuster he picks and USAA’s adjuster try to reach an agreement. If that fails, then an umpire would decide, Monaco said.

If New is unhappy with the result, he can then sue. Regardless, New said he intends to leave USAA.

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Russell Mayfield, who lives on Mornings Downs in the Dominion, sued Safeco Insurance Co. alleging it won’t pay to replace his damaged roof. The case was filed in October in state District Court.

“I’m suing them right now because I had full roof replacement coverage on my policy,” he said.

The tile on Mayfield’s house has been discontinued. He wrote on NextDoor, an online neighborhood forum, that Safeco was “scouring across bone yards in the US looking for used discarded tiles to replace the hundreds of tiles that are cracked and broken from the hail storm.”

Mayfield’s next door neighbor, a customer of Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., parent of Safeco, got a new roof, he said.

Safeco spokesman Glenn Greenberg declined to comment because the matter is in litigation. In a court filing in November, the company generally denied Mayfield’s allegations.

To be sure, there are Dominion homeowners pleased with how their insurer handled their claim. AIG cut resident Richard Thum a $110,000 check to replace his roof and repair other damage. He lives on Tuscany Court.

Thum witnessed the storm and has strong feelings about how those insurers tangling with customers should have handled the claims.

“It should have been a no-brainer,” Thum said. “They should have bellied up to the bar. But they didn’t and (homeowners) have had to go fight them. They should have made the insureds back to being whole again.”

Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD