Summer 2015 has already exhibited plenty of extreme weather. Are your homeowners clients prepared for the risks that go hand in hand with peak tornado season?

According to JoAnn Streem, vice president, global risk consulting manager at ACE Private Risk Services, your clients can take a variety of steps to protect their property and families before disaster strikes—as long as they think about it ahead of time.

To adequately prepare for tornado season, encourage your homeowners clients to pay particular attention to the following exposures in their home:

Entry doors. “One of the things people don’t often think about is the fact that your doors, windows and garage doors are all huge openings to the home,” Streem says. “You really want to try to protect those as much as possible.”

Streem advises making sure entry doors have a two-inch deadbolt lock, three hinges and long screws to secure the framing into the flooring or wall. “Everyone thinks they have a strong door, but it’s also about how that door is mounted,” she explains. “The framing and how the door is actually bolted into the structure of the residence is equally important because the door can fly right off if the framing members come out.”

Garage doors. According to Streem, most homeowners forget that their garage door presents a major exposure when a storm hits. “Garage doors are actually one of the most vulnerable areas of the home because of the fact that they’re such a large area,” she points out. “If the garage door gets compromised, then the home itself is going to be compromised.”

If garage doors are eight feet or wider, “they need to be braced,” Streem says. Whether braces are wood or metal, cross or vertical, the goal is to add strength to the garage door “so it can withstand more pressure from the outside forces,” Streem says. “Sometimes that’s debris hitting the property and sometimes that’s wind. Either way, that bracing is going to help to make that door stronger.”

Windows. Because tornadoes are very similar to hurricanes for their strong winds, many products designed for hurricane protection work well for tornado protection, too. Streem says hurricane-resistant glass is the best approach to strengthen windows.

But if a homeowner is not interested in replacing their current windows with stronger glass, shutters are a more cost-effective option that don’t affect the curb appeal of the home. “Another very pragmatic way of handling it is to have plywood that is cut and pre-drilled for each window,” Streem says. “That’s a less expensive option for clients, but it really comes down to doing it ahead of time—if it’s not pre-drilled, you’re not going to have enough time to secure your home when the siren sounds.”

Roof structures. To ensure a storm doesn’t compromise the “envelope” of the home structure, Streem encourages homeowners to purchase hurricane framing clips—a product that attaches the roof structure to the house and strengthens the connection between the two.

“If you imagine the way the house is constructed and the way the roof structure and the structure of the home come together, it’s often just nails in an angular fashion,” Streem explains, noting that hurricane clips aren’t very expensive and most contractors know how to install them. “If you actually add these clips on, you’re creating a strength beyond that of just a nail into a board, which is obviously going to be a lot better in the event of one of these storms.”

Beyond sharing these preparation tips with your clients, helping them secure the proper insurance coverage is the obvious next step. “The elements that are critical are making sure you have a policy that makes sure you’re going to be whole in the event of a loss,” Streem says.

Ideally, that involves full replacement cost coverage to avoid clients realizing they don’t have enough insurance to become whole again after a loss. For example, “if you only have an extended replacement policy of 125% of the coverage, then you could potentially have some gaps,” Streem points out.

Another key insurance concern during tornado season? Replacement cost on contents vs. actual cash value. “It’s difficult trying to estimate the contents value in your home after a loss and to then have to say what is the actual cash value vs. what is the replacement cost of those contents,” Streem says. “You could be left dramatically underinsured.”

Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.