Home Insurance and a TPO'd Tree

oysteroyster

We have a very large copper beech tree with a TPO on it in our garden. Despite having had it looked at by an arborist in the past couple of years, it recently suffered significant damage which means it now needs significant work doing to it to make it safe and balanced - we've been quoted over £4k (access to the tree isn't great). The damage could be partly attributed to the recent storms, though did not happen during - so a claim of storm damage, or non storm damage could potentially be made. If the tree is left as it is, it risks, in time, falling onto our and our neighbour's house. As it stands, it only so-far took out our neighbour's fence.

Speaking to the arborist, they were initially quite confident it should be something covered by our home insurance, with such a significant TPO'd tree likely part of our initial conveyancing and mortgaging surveys. However, speaking to our insurer, they say they cannot see any reasons for a claim and that they only deal with damage repair, not preventative measures. We have combined Buildings and Contents insurance with MoreThan.

I spoke to somebody local who had a similar issue except part of their tree fell onto their garage. Despite an initial pushback from their insurer who only wanted to pay for their garage repairs, they managed to speak to the loss adjuster who agreed to pay for the full removal of the tree (a cool £7k) once it was established the tree posed a real threat to the rest of the property and was essential work.

Does anyone see any justification for a claim on our side for any reason or is this likely a painful bill we'll just have to bite?

Ditzy_Mitzy

No, in a word.  You haven't suggested that there's been any sort of insurable event that might form the basis of a claim.  What do you mean by 'significant damage'?  

Sandtree

You'll have to cover the cost... the fact you have made them aware of the issue also gives them a potential get out clause should the tree fall in the interim as your policy obliges you to ensure your property is in a good state of repair and reasonable actions to avoid claims are taken. 

Insurance covers the unexpected events in life not routine maintenance nor the consequences of not doing maintenance 

TELLIT01

From a quick browse of insurers, they will cover damage caused by the tree but not for maintenance and remedial work.  Certainly looks like the cost of that will fall to the OP.  Has the arborist fully checked the tree since the storms and are they happy that the rest of it is safe?  Make sure you speak to the council before doing any work on the tree.

eddddy

FWIW, £4k sounds expensive (maybe it's because tree-surgeons are inflating their rates because of the storms).

Cost is based on the time the job takes (e.g. half a day, or 1 day or 2 days). A 'tree surgery gang' usually charge less than £1k per day (depending on where you are). I doubt it would take more than 1 day. If access is difficult - e.g. big logs will need to be carried a long way to the truck - maybe there's the cost of an extra labourer.


Also, it would have been better to read your insurance policy before contacting your insurers - you'd probably have seen that this wasn't covered.

Because you contacted them, your insurers might have recorded the incident on the CUE database, which might result in increased premiums in future. 

Sandtree

eddddy said:

FWIW, £4k sounds expensive (maybe it's because tree-surgeons are inflating their rates because of the storms).

Does the tree protection order add any additional time/effort/expertise that may either impact man hours and/or enable them to increase the rate? Not an area I have any knowledge on but just know that in general when regulations tend to come in play they add complexity and cost