Damage or Loss of Personal Property due to Severe Weather or Extraordinary Hazards
The Military Personnel and Civilian Employees Claims Act (MPCECA), is a gratuitous payment statue. It does not provide insurance coverage and is not designed to make the United States a total insurer of the personal property of claimants. Payment does not depend on tort liability or Government fault. Below are the rules of engagement:
1. The MPCECA provides protection from extraordinary hazards such as violent acts of nature and other events affecting the military installation that other members and employees do not face to the same degree. Severe Weather; storms ordinarily are not considered Acts of God or unusual occurrences. In many areas, at different times of the year, storms occur routinely, and damage claims from regularly occurring storms normally are not paid. However, if a particular storm is of extreme intensity, or causes damage to an unexpected degree of severity, it may be considered an unusual occurrence. The Chief, Air Force Claims Service Center with the recommendation of the base SJA will make that determination and is the final authority. We will only consider claims for loss or damage from military and federal civilian employees whose property was located at an authorized location on/off base. There are no provisions to pay claims for contractors or non-base-connected persons. Because we can only process the claims of USAF employees, members of other services must file with their respective military branch.
2. IMPORTANT: All covered federal employees MUST FIRST file claims for such damage/loss with their own private insurance companies. The MPCECA is "secondary" to all private insurance coverage for incidents such as the one recently experienced. After you have completed and received your final insurance settlement letter you may start the Air Force claims process. Once you have the required documentation, you can file your claim online from a government computer at https://claims.jag.af.mil. If you do not have access to a government computer, call the Air Force Claims Service Center (AFCSC) at DSN: 986-8044, comm: (937) 656-8044, or 1-877-754-1212 to obtain a username and password that is valid for 60 days to file from any computer.
3. We advise any affected person to:
a. Report the damage/loss to the Security Forces Squadron on base.
b. Take photos of the damage and the cause if possible.
c. Report the damage to your private insurer and complete your insurance claim process. Then, if you still are not fully compensated for the loss, you can file a claim as described above.
4. We do not advise you to have the damages repaired prior to completing the Air Force Claims process, because if an inspection is required for your claim we will not be able to inspect the damage. However, if you must have the damages repaired please contact the AFCSC prior to doing so. This way a determination may be made if an inspection is required.