Tree Company Drops Tree on House, what Should I Do?

[Jdavidson015]

I have handled a lot of claims like this, and can tell you that the trees themselves would fall under a different category of insurance than the damages to your home.

Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance would address the damages to your home, but not to the trees themselves. To nutshell it, the way this is handled at the claims level is CGL handles the damages resulting from an action. A good example would be if a roofer improperly installed a roof and subsequent interior damages were caused by the leaks, CGL would cover the interior damages resulting from the improper installation, but not the roof installation itself. So, in your case, CGL would cover the damages to your home, but not the poor or improper work product (that being the wrong trees cut the wrong way).

Professional Liability (which a lot of arborists do not carry) would likely cover this damage to your trees under Wrongful Acts or Failure to Perform, but as I said, most arborists and smaller general contractors do not carry PL insurance, and even if they were it could be pretty subjective since they never had a work order or signed contract with you, and it really would boil down to a "he said, she said" situation with you saying "they cut down the wrong trees" and them saying "we cut what we were told to cut". The aesthetics of the tree are subjective too, as while you say "they butchered the tree", they might say" we trimmed it to prevent it from causing damages, which is what we were hired for".

Another avenue (and the best one) to look at is whether or not the arborist is bonded. If they are, you should be good to go, and I would recommend seeking out whoever bonded them and filing a claim with that company for the tree issue.

Thank you for all of this, I attached a pic of what they did to butcher the tree, there's basically nothing left. It's was a full grown black cherry which is a very expensive tree. As far as knowing what to cut, the owner of the company came out and marked all of the trees with orange spray paint, and the tree that hit the house was not one of them. But they weren't supposed to even start without the work order or deposit anyway. But we made them take it so we legally do have the contract at this point in time now.... He told us it hit the house only after we gave it to him though, not sure if that makes a difference.

I don't know if they are bonded, but being a tree company I wouldn't think they would be, would they?

Either way we are waiting to hear from them, but in the mean time, I've already called a couple roofing companies to get their opinions on the damage and cost to repair. So well see how that goes.
Thanks again

 

[Jdavidson015]

Just got a few more pics

 

[Jdavidson015]

Not sure what they aren't posting correctly

 

[Jdavidson015]

Lets try this one bet its just gunna do one again

 

[Jdavidson015]

I believe this is the last one

 

[LGilmore]

I think you need to take a breath and talk to the owner of the company and see what they are willing to do. Clearly mistakes were made, but see what they will do first to fix things.

As far as the quality of the tree trimming of the Cherry tree, couldn't tell you if it was technically "good" or not as sometimes when you cut a tree back the appearance is for several years down the road, not the next day. Could be they trimmed it correctly. You'd have to probably hire another professional in that field to render an opinion.

The main thing would be to worry about your roof and getting that repaired. You did not post pics of that so I don't know how bad it really is.

Call the owner and attempt to get things resolved there first. If you can't get anywhere, then take other steps, but give the guy a chance to make things better.

 

[best14rates]

I know that one of the tree trimmers that I insure had something similar happen and the contractors insurance paid for everything all the damage that was done. I would suggest you talk to the owner of the business and have him give you the certificate that you should of had before you let them work on your trees. Explain to the owner that he needs to pay for the repairs or you will have to file it on his insurance. Next option would be to file it on your insurance and let your insurance company go after them for the money. .

 

[xrac]

I think you need to take a breath and talk to the owner of the company and see what they are willing to do. Clearly mistakes were made, but see what they will do first to fix things.

As far as the quality of the tree trimming of the Cherry tree, couldn't tell you if it was technically "good" or not as sometimes when you cut a tree back the appearance is for several years down the road, not the next day. Could be they trimmed it correctly. You'd have to probably hire another professional in that field to render an opinion.

The main thing would be to worry about your roof and getting that repaired. You did not post pics of that so I don't know how bad it really is.

Call the owner and attempt to get things resolved there first. If you can't get anywhere, then take other steps, but give the guy a chance to make things better.

This is good advice!

 

[Jdavidson015]

Here are the pics of the roof, had a roofer out today and he said the patch will look like **** so insurance will replace the entire back roof, pics of damage to follow. Spoke with the owner, and he doesn't want to go through his insurance due to deductibles and rate increases etc. that said he wants to send someone over to fix it, which regardless of what happens, we will not allow as we don't know who he will send or if they know what they are doing. We also don't like the idea of having a huge patch in the back of the roof because we are tying to make the backyard more usable, which is part of why we are taking down some of these trees. A friend of ours is a contractor and he says there could be underlying damage as well as the potential for a leak due to this.

 

[Jdavidson015]

Sorry to send these pics in separate messages, not sure why it won't let me send more than one at a time