Tree inspection- insurance wants a "qualified tree surgeon"

[Paddy1000111]

12 hours ago, tree77 said:

Tree mortgage reports are fairly straightforward, site map with trees plotted, tree details/distance from building etc, soil type base upon the British geographical maps, any previous history relating to property/damage.

Lots of cavats of whats not included,covered. 

 

Just make sure you indemnity insurance covers you.

 

Thanks for the advice. Like I said though, I have absolutely no training whatsoever so it's not a risk I'm willing to take for myself or the client who will end up with a piece of paper that means jack if there becomes an issue! 

 

When I find out from Aviva what they want then I'll post it up here in case anyone else stumbles across this 

[daltontrees]

10 hours ago, Paddy1000111 said:

Thanks for the advice. Like I said though, I have absolutely no training whatsoever so it's not a risk I'm willing to take for myself or the client who will end up with a piece of paper that means jack if there becomes an issue! 

 

When I find out from Aviva it'sthey want then I'll post it up here in case anyone else stumbles across this 

Good choice. If it sounds iffy, it probably is. I am astonished at how shoddy Aviva is being about this. Insurers want to cover themselves too (first an foremost) and if they get the customer to declare that someone has said it's OK, then later it's not OK (or currently it's not OK but the problem will show up soon) they will leave the customer high and dry. Then the customer will turn to you.

 

Although the trees sound small and the risk is small, you're doing the right thing as Aviva is wanting a simple way to be able to say it isn't covering damage or it wants someeone to blame . Don't lose sigh of that. If it was just a formality they wouldn't be asking.

 

I'd be interseted in your posting after you have heard from them.

 

No offence to tree surgeons, I ran my own contracting business as one for years, but what makes one of the UK's biggest insurers think that people that cut above-ground parts of a tree for a living (qualified or not) understand what any particular tree is  or will be doing under the ground close to buildings?

 

Shit. I've got my PLI and PII insurance with them. I might drop them a line at renewal and say I don't have confidence in them any more :-)

[Paddy1000111]

This is it isn't it. They obviously need to modify their policy documents because "Qualified Tree surgeon" doesn't really mean anything. Like you say, it means you can take a tree out or do some pruning but there is no part of the training that covers tree root growth and their interaction with property. It also makes me look like a bit of a tit when the documents say "Qualified tree surgeon" and I have to explain to the customer how I am qualified but also not qualified.... 

 

I tried to ring them today but they are shut with the bank holiday so I'll try again tomorrow. Another job to add to the list! 

[daltontrees]

47 minutes ago, Paddy1000111 said:

This is it isn't it. They obviously need to modify their policy documents because "Qualified Tree surgeon" doesn't really mean anything. Like you say, it means you can take a tree out or do some pruning but there is no part of the training that covers tree root growth and their interaction with property. It also makes me look like a bit of a tit when the documents say "Qualified tree surgeon" and I have to explain to the customer how I am qualified but also not qualified.... 

 

I tried to ring them today but they are shut with the bank holiday so I'll try again tomorrow. Another job to add to the list! 

Please persevere. Someone has to do these things for the benefit of all.

[Paul in the woods]

Being a rare beast that reads my insurance documents and queries details with my insurance company it seems normal practice for most of the insurance companies staff to not have much of an idea of what they insure. Normally you have to know more than them and ask a specific question, then point out the answer they give is rubbish before it's past onto a dark room where the underwriters live. You may, but only may, then get a decent answer.

 

Looking at the insurance document all I can see is "Keep any trees and shrubs near your home well - trimmed" which would prove my point. What does near mean, what does well trimmed mean?

[Paddy1000111]

1 hour ago, Paul in the woods said:

Being a rare beast that reads my insurance documents and queries details with my insurance company it seems normal practice for most of the insurance companies staff to not have much of an idea of what they insure. Normally you have to know more than them and ask a specific question, then point out the answer they give is rubbish before it's past onto a dark room where the underwriters live. You may, but only may, then get a decent answer.

 

Looking at the insurance document all I can see is "Keep any trees and shrubs near your home well - trimmed" which would prove my point. What does near mean, what does well trimmed mean?

I did the same as you by the looks of it and had a read and found the bit about keeping trees and shrubs well trimmed. I think the home insurance people ask if you have any trees over 3M within 6M of your house and she said yes which led to this little gem of a requirement. 

[daltontrees]

My policy is quite alarming, it doesn't mention trees but trees are part of the property. What it says is this -

Taking care of your property
You and your family must take all reasonable precautions to avoid injury, loss or damage and take all reasonable steps to safeguard all the property insured from loss or damage.

To me that says that if you let subsidence damage happen, or you don't get rid of a hazardous tree, and damage happens, the insurers won't pay out.

I think it is an obvious equivalent to 3rd party subsidence claims, where the courts move steadily closer to the 'reasonably foreseeable' test of liability for subsidence damage. If you know there is subsidence in your area and that trees can cause it, and you let trees cause subsidence to your own property, the insurers can point to the wording of the policy and tell you you're getting nothing.

That said, insurers pay out small claims when they don't need to, for business rather than legal reasons. It's only when it really matters and you need them most that these wooly policy wordings are at their most alarming.

[Paddy1000111]

So I have spent 28 minutes on the phone with Aviva. I do appreciate that they let you chose the music you listen to whilst you slowly lose the will to live. I chose "pop/hits" for a wonderful collection of music from 2001.

 

I eventually got through to customer services who told me they had no idea so sent me to claims. Another 3 minute wait. I then spoke to a girl who was very nice but also didn't know and said "as long as you're qualified" but also didn't know about the inspection requirements that the customer presented me with so she popped me back on hold and had a chat with her manager. After a total of 28 minutes I was told that it might be an additional requirement on the policy after a previous subsidence claim. They needed the policy documents and I don't have authorisation. I need to get the customer to ask (who won't know the qualification requirements) or get the customer to approve my request. How this is so difficult I don't know?!

[Paddy1000111]

So the customer has contacted the broker and apparently a written report is not needed. She just needs to keep a note on file that she has had a tree surgeon in every couple of years to check the trees. You know what, I don't care anymore 😂 I give up. Insurance is such a farce. One minute they aren't interested and say you don't need anything extra done then when an claim goes in they ask for the file of paperwork they expected you to keep.

 

This is why I am so anal about insurance. It's all fun and games until you need to make a claim. 

Edited April 6, 2021 by Paddy1000111

[Jon Heuch]

18 hours ago, daltontrees said:

No offence to tree surgeons, I ran my own contracting business as one for years, but what makes one of the UK's biggest insurers think that people that cut above-ground parts of a tree for a living (qualified or not) understand what any particular tree is  or will be doing under the ground close to buildings?

There are a variety of reasons for this mess; one is that our professional bodies (jointly) need to agree on a terminology & then get out there and tell everybody what the difference is between a tree surgeon and a consultant. They haven't & they don't, although the AA's website by itself helps. There is a discussion to be had & I've been in previous discussions which tend to go not very far. So the AA had "tree contractors" for a long time as their main brand. Luckily someone eventually woke up to the reality that Yellow Pages (as it was) was not interested in changing their listings for "Tree Surgeons" into Arborists or Arboriculturists or something even more obscure e.g. Arboriculturalists & the AA now uses Tree Surgeons. That's one step forward! However, they are still "Approved Contractor" if they get through the AA's accreditation.

 

Just to confuse matters, the ICF is considering a "Technical" membership grade (discussions still continuing) which will confuse matters further.

 

So please don't blame insurance companies for the mess of training levels, courses, job titles, accreditation that arboriculture and forestry have created and continue to propagate. People don't want to know that some people think that a consulting arborist is different from an arboricultural consultant. Or that an arborist differs from a tree surgeon. A member of the public needs to speak to someone about their tree? Yell.com shows "Tree Surgeons" ....stick arboriculture or tree consultants into their search box and you get.....tree surgeons. That's why I don't advertise on Yell.com any more because I get phone calls from people who want.....tree surgeons!

 

Google does help a bit in allowing differentiation but with tree surgeons offering "consultancy" services things can go around in circles!