State Farm has received hundreds of claims after a severe thunderstorm system spawned four tornadoes across Lower Michigan on March 6-7, causing widespread damage to homes and businesses in Union City, Three Rivers, and Edwardsburg.
State Farm spokesperson Tom Hartmann said the volume of claims continues to grow as more customers come forward.
"We're continuing to receive more as customers have the opportunity to reach out to us," Hartmann said, adding that the majority of filings involve residential properties.
The insurer set up a mobile claims center in Three Rivers, where the National Weather Service confirmed an EF-2 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 130 mph. The twister was on the ground for roughly 18 minutes, traveling nearly 11 miles through the heart of the city and damaging homes, businesses, and a hospital, WWMT reported.
The NWS classified the Union City tornado as an EF-3, with maximum wind speeds of 160 mph. It damaged or destroyed numerous residences and uprooted trees across the area.
Michigan's reliable tornado records date to 1950, and no EF-3 or stronger tornado had previously been confirmed this early in a calendar year, The Watchers noted. The previous record was an EF-3 that struck north of Ann Arbor on March 15, 2012.
AccuWeather meteorologist Jesse Ferrell has pointed out that only five of the past 30 years have produced any March tornadoes in Michigan at all, making an event of this intensity at this point in the season highly unusual.
The tornado was also the strongest to hit the state since an F-4 tore through Kalamazoo on April 2, 1977.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency in Branch, St. Joseph, and Cass counties. No federal disaster declaration has been issued.
The Michigan storms come amid a broader surge in losses from severe convective weather across the United States. Research from Acrisure Re found that insured losses from such events reached nearly $200 billion between 2020 and 2024, roughly 2.5 times the total from the preceding five-year period.
Geographic patterns have also been shifting, with traditional "Tornado Alley" gradually moving eastward, the same research noted. Cotality Weather Insight has cited both the March 2026 outbreak and a May 2024 EF-1 near Union City as evidence that southern Michigan faces significant tornado risk outside the traditional late-spring peak.
State Farm has not released a preliminary cost estimate for the Michigan tornadoes, and damage assessments remain ongoing. A 2023 Cotality report estimated that severe convective storms account for average annual insured losses exceeding $17 billion nationwide.
Michigan recorded 31 tornadoes in 2025, according to the Insurance Information Institute. The five states with the highest counts that year were Texas at 162, Illinois at 147, Missouri at 120, Mississippi at 111, and Alabama at 72.
