Home owners Insurance

[DDM]

What is your Experience with Home owners insurance Paying for tree removal of a damaged or diseased tree?

 

[treeclimber165]

I've never gotten in the middle on those situations. My contract is with the homeowner, NOT the insurance company. I bid the job to the homeowner, provide any and all written documentation, insurance certificate, etc. and collect from the homeowner. They can submit the receipt for reimbursement.

Let them deal with their insurance company. Many Ins. Co.s will find a way to 'deduct' for this or that and I don't need to go back 4 weeks later to try and collect my last $300-$400 from the homeowner because the insurance company didn't follow through.

Standard policy here in FL. will pay up to $500 for removal of a tree struck by lightning, but nothing for preventative measures or trees that die from other causes.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

They will pay for lightining struck trees, for some odd reason, but nothing else until it falls on something.
I recall a storm one time where a large tree was split and just barely hanging on, if it failed it would cause thousands of dollars of damage to the house. The insurance company said, call us back after it falls.
Right next door a tree fell in the yard and missed everthing, but the tips where lightly laying on a split rail fence. This same company paid to have that tree cleaned up.

 

[DDM]

Hmmmmm i wunder how you would get on a insurance companies List of contractors?

 

[Toddppm]

Try this http://www.claimsgate.com/scripts/home/index.asp
That was in one of the mags I read the other day can't remember which one.
That is weird about the lightning struck trees, we did a big Poplar that got hit a couple weeks ago and it was covered. Only about the 3rd one I've had for that, the rest it usually has to hit something and it's covered.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I rarely work with the insurance company, the contract reads "payment due on compleation" I will have them initial this so they understand that I cannot wait for the insurance to settle.

What the ins. will cover varies from compnay to company and even between policies. I was on one where the adjuster said they would pay to have it removed from the house, but nothing else. No chipping, not the removal of remainder of the tree.

"What about the comp. coverage and cleanup?" "First $500 will be covered under comp." he admitted.

Soooo, we had to chip to get the stuff out of the way. Had to rig a good portion of the intact crown out to get the stuff off the roof. So the client ended up getting billed for removal of one stem, the trunk and stump grind. Bout $600 on a $2100 job.

 

[Greg]

The $500 for lightning struck trees is about all I ever hear HO ins covering.
Right now my brother in law wants to pay me to remove a dead pine in his neighbors yard becasue he is afraid it will fall on his house. I told him no way am I doing his neighbors tree work at brother in law rates, he needs to sue the neigbor to have that tree taken down. He would win with no problem. This tree is a hazard to 2 homes, pedestrians and stree traffic. His cheap a-hole neighbor needs to pay the bill.
Greg

 

[TREETX]

My experience has only been with a green tree/large limb hits car, or structure. Bid high because you may eat the cost for a month or more. Not my bag though. Emphasis on GREEN

 

[Nickrosis]

Homeowner's Insurance and Your Mistakes

What's this I hear about people operating tree businesses without insurance saying, "the homeowner's insurance will cover more damage than I could ever inflict. I don't need no insurance unless I was doing big jobs."

Is that true? Will they cover boffos of bozos in the tree care industry?

Nickrosis

 

[Greg]

I think HO ins would cover those type screw ups. My dad was getting some est's on tree work years ago and had a guy tell him that he was going to do it for about $500.00 less than anyone else, and if somthing does hit the house "all you have to do" is call the ins co and tell them that you did it yourself and they would cover it.
I have a bunch of tree guys around me that work without ins. So many people are worried about only the price I don't think they even care until they can see that a screw up is going to destroy part of their house, then they ask. Those no-insurance guys are usually the best at cutting stuff up for the garbage/yard waste pick up to haul off. I guess when you live in a single wide and drive an old beat up POS pick up, have no income that the IRS knows about, why would you need insurance? Insurance is for people who have somthing to loose.
Greg

 

[DDM]

Nick, Yes you are correct If i didnt have any insurance and Dropped a tree thru a house The homeowners insurance Will Pay to repair the house Of course But when there lawyers got a hold of me The price of Liability insurance would have been cheap.

 

[Newfie]

Yup, Dave's right, insurance companies don't want to pay a claim for anything anymore unless you "subrogate" your rights and they can sue someone to recover their money.

Also warn the homeowner that the insurance company is not obligated to renew their policy and most likely won't with an act of stupidity claim.

And by the way, filing such a claim is fraud, and don't think they won't prosecute if they get wind of it.

 

[Mr.Cutemup]

Everyone is talking about doing work without lib. ins. and home owner ins. picking up tab. What if God forbid someone gets hurt bad? The home owner could lose everything. We do a lot of Ins. work. We have good relations with area ins.co. Some times when a customer needs some work done, Ins. Co. refers them to us. The problem we run into is a customer with a wind damaged tree getting mad at us because we write it up as wind damage and not lighting. Thus the ins. co. will not pay. If we wrote it anyother way, it would fraud. Cut'em Up

 

[mikey]

When I was just a kid,we had a storm come thru and broke the root system of a large pine in our yard.The storm left the tree leaning toward the house.I remember my dad really mad because the ins. co. said they could do nothing about the tree until it fell.My dad kept climbing the chain of command until he found someone in the ins. co. with common sense and the tree removed.