Insurance company games

[Nick Connell]

It will probably be in an area prone to subsidence. Insurers are asking more and more nowadays about the vegetation around properties before agreeing insurance. They obviously do not want to insure properties that are considered high risk. But I think someone at the insurance company has got their knickers in a twist here and misunderstood the arb report. Either that or the arb consultant's haven't made it clear enough to the insurer what works is purely good management and what works constitute a reduction in risk.

Do you have the whole report Nick? If so does it make any distinction in the wider context of the report?

 

 

I read the whole report which is strange in itself to record small trees in the neighbours garden which are out of range of the boundary even if they fell over. It seems to be the insurance company which is making the biggest misunderstanding of the report by with holding insurance until all works on the report are completed. It would have been better to have an independent consultant rather than the insurance company one I think.

[Paul Melarange]

I wonder whether the company providing the arboricultural consultancy are paid per tree? It would explain why they have included so many trees that appear to be insignificant.

[Nick Connell]

I think the £480 sounds like a normal small job charge for a tree survey

[Stubby]

Just to complicate thing hypothetically ....What if there were TPOs or in a CA ?

[Sleeches]

Tell them to change insurer. Any insurer who is spending this much time on a small domestic policy like this is going to be very poor at paying out claims. Their expense overhead loading will be huge so they will have to claw is back on the loss ratio which generally means not paying valid claims.

 

The only policies who should be going into this kind of detail before coverage are high value unusual ones, like very old places with little/no foundations or non-standard constructions like prefabs.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

One of my customers has been having trouble from her insurance company in a way I never heard.

 

She moved house and told her insurance company they insisted she cut down a 15ft weeping willow about 30ft from the house and a 25ft goat willow around 12ft from the house. They told her that she would not be covered until they were cut down. She sent them before and after photos but they said this wasn't sufficient. She then paid £480 for a tree survey by the insurance company that now says she needs to cut down a small dead apple tree in the neighbours garden and dead wood a tall ash which is in the neighbours garden but slightly overhangs her garden 300ft from the house. All this before she is covered. I've never heard anything like it!

 

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Sounds weird!

 

If she paid for the survey she should have been able to (a) choose the surveyor and (b) set the purpose / terms of the survey for example - to provide expert opinion whether the trees were / were not a tangible threat to the fabric of the structure.

 

If the insurance company 'required' the survey and nominated the surveyor they should have stated the purpose and scope of the survey and then set their insurance requirements based upon the findings in the survey.

 

From the info available, it looks like it's just a record of everything that is there rather than a summary of the potential for what is there to be a tangible risk.

 

So perhaps the outfit providing the survey were just told to record everything rather than summarise potential risk / benefit of the trees and the implications of requiring an action on a tree that is not in the prospective customers ownership. Perhaps the insurance company don't know what it is they should be asking for or how to interpret it when they get it?

 

Looks like too much of a faff to be bothering with that insurance provider....

[easy-lift guy]

The customer owns the house without a mortgage so no bank involved. I can't believe you need a £480 tree survey to get your house insured after already taking down the willows!

 

If this survey is required by any insurance company in order to have a policy written I believe your customer is SOL. A true pity and another horrible example of how an insurance company can and will flease the customer for every pound.

Fortunately the insurance companies here in the states have not caught on with this fraud, yet:sneaky2:

easy-lift guy

[codlasher]

I had one job where a willow was undermining the 16th century timber framed property. Heaving the tiles of the kitchen floor and moving the entrance door.

The solution was not to cut the tree down, as it was in memory to the clients wife, but to dig a 2.5m deep x .450mm wide trench 10 metres long and fill it with concrete.

In doing this we removed two 90mm roots that had been quietly mining under the wall! I posted this some time back and looking back the operation has been a great success. House happy, tree happy, client happy.

Problem sorted.

codlasher

[Arctostaphylos uva-ursi]

I read the whole report which is strange in itself to record small trees in the neighbours garden which are out of range of the boundary even if they fell over. It seems to be the insurance company which is making the biggest misunderstanding of the report by with holding insurance until all works on the report are completed. It would have been better to have an independent consultant rather than the insurance company one I think.

 

From the little information you have provided I think the consultants were probably asked to survey all trees within the vicinity of the property (which they appear to have done). The fault appears to be in the interpretation of the survey. Your client clearly has no jurisdiction over trees in neighbouring properties and it is unlikely that the neighbours small dead apple and deadwood within an ash constitute a significant risk to your client. I still recommend your client contact the consultants stating her position and asking them for some confirmation, in writing, on what works is actually necessary. She can then pass this on to her insurer.

[TGB]

You ask for a quote, they estimate the risk and calculate the premium and you decide whether the premium is acceptable. If it isn't, you go to the next company. If you want to insure a red car. The insurance company doesn't insist that you get a respray to a less accident prone colour. Or insist that you get all the other red cars in the locale resprayed too 'before' they'll insure. And you just know they'll wriggle out of any claim, "Sorry. You're not covered, as there's a 'y' in the day of the week when the event occurred."