Olympia Storm Damage by Ryan Kitko, December 2006

It won’t be long until new winter weather patterns head our way, and with 2011 turning into a La Nina year, we should be thinking about how to weather this winter’s storms.

What can we learn from storms like Irene and Hanu. Eve?

1. Have a disaster kit in the house. 20 gallons of drinking water per person, blankets, batteries, transistor radio, and canned goods or edible dried foods to weather a week without power or water.

2. Look at your trees ahead of time, and review their health. The 2006 event was preceeded by two weeks of intense rain, which softened the root zones and increased the danger of falling. Look for dead branches, rotting or hollow places in trunks, and badly off-kilter trees. Dead branches can be pruned, off-kilter trees can be balanced … but significant hollowness or trunk rot may constitute a hazard tree that needs to be removed. Trees with dense foliage can be made less vulnerable to wind shear through “wind-sailing” — trimming for less wind resistance. Whatever you find … be proactive, because winter storms will be here before you know it.

3. If flooding or storm surges occur, don’t rebuild in the same place. We need more wetlands and coastal habitat for the health and productivity of our entire ecosystem. This is a political issue, and a tough nut to crack because of the money and power behind developers who want to keep their waterfront properties. But we need to be learning that storms are getting bigger, oceans are rising, natural barriers need to be increased, not undermined …. and whether we live in Ocean Shores or Anacortes, we need to consider the impact of tax dollars going to help reimburse developers and insurance companies who unwisely build where nature has already demonstrated that all bets are off.

The good news is that in the last 10 years, the generally accepted value of trees has skyrocketed, and today homeowners can protect their assets, including trees themselves and the cost of removing them. Let’s look at the implications of these changes. Also, let’s look at “hurricane deductibles” or “percentage deductibles” which in recent years have become common in some parts of the country. Some of these so-called protections against the extreme storms we’ve started to see in recent years, may leave you with unexpected costs when high winds come your way.

Tree insurance is available but not standard

On “standard” homeowners policies*, trees themselves are generally not covered, except perhaps $500 to $1000 each when they are lost in conjunction with a “named peril” to your house. So your typical homeowners policy most likely won’t reimburse you for the loss of that beautiful old Douglas Fir that gave your property much of its curb appeal, and made you fall in love with the house.

A number of insurance companies now offer “enhanced landscape” policies which insure individual trees for up to $100,000, and overall landscaping coverage limits as high as 10 percent of the total insured value of the property. So a typical Seattle home valued at, say, $500,000 might be provided with $50,000 in coverage to its trees in the event of a loss… in addition to any damage that comes from the trees striking the house. But only if you specifically purchase such coverage.

Deductibles Can Hurt You

Standard* homeowners policies are primarily designed to protect your house or the people around it from your trees. If a tree falls on your car, your comprehensive coverage will most likely cover that as well. Generally,* if a tree falls on a garage or shed the coverage is limited to 10% of the insured value of your house. And if a tree just falls … well, unless there was a “named peril” such as lightning or storm, tree damage is generally considered to be a maintenance issue.

If your falling tree does damage to your protected assets, you may be reimbursed if wind, storm, lightning. In fact, often the policy won’t care that much whose tree did the damage (unless negligence was involved).

BUT … and here’s a big issue … if the damage happens in a major storm, with many recent policies you may have a much bigger deductible that you’ll have to pay. Depending on the insurance company, it could be classed as a hurricane if it’s a “named” hurricane, OR if winds of at least 74 mph were clocked that day somewhere in the state … or even if lesser winds that are “associated” with a major storm in another state find their way to your area up to several days later.

Standard deductibles are easy to understand: a flat amount that you have to pay. Unlike healthcare, homeowners deductibles are almost always “per occurence”. In other words, you don’t build up deductibles if you have two storms the same year. Both occurrences will have the same deductible.

Hurricane or percentage deductibles, however, are very tricky. They are usually a percentage of the “limit of insurance” — the total amount the house or building may be covered for. So instead of $1000 flat deductible, you may be hit with a deductible, not of 3% of the cost of the claim, but 3% of the total amount the house is insured for. Let’s say you have a house that has a total limit of coverage of $1 million. Your deductible would be $30,000. So, if you had $40,000 damage, you’d only get $10,000 for your claim.

Some policies separate “wind and hail” claims from “hurricane” claims. Often, these different categories make things confusing. Before a claim arises, go over your policy carefully with your agent… and make sure you understand the coverage you have. In the Pacific Northwest, it’s unlikely you have true “hurricane” coverage; hailstorm or windstorm coverage, and earthquake riders are more common here.

Tree removal insurance is also standard

Insurance adjusters recognize the difference between damage to your house, damage to your trees, and the costs of removing fallen trees. In the latter case, recent years have seen changes in the way most insurance companies think.

In the past, homeowners were often advised to find the cheapest guy with a chainsaw, to cut up a fallen tree. Now, insurance adjusters prefer to work with established tree care professionals, because of the many dangers associated with tree work. Safe, professional crews mean lower costs in the long run, because there are fewer dangers to family, neighbors, the crew, and the property itself. So if you are working with reputable insurance companies, in most cases* the insurance adjusters will work with you to provide realistic coverages for professional tree care companies to remove and repair storm damage.

Typical insurance coverage allowances per tree. They consider size of tree, amount of equipment needed, accessibility of the site, and the complexity of the removal from yard or structures.

According to Property Casualty 360, many adjusters use a chart similar to this to evaluate the costs they are willing to reimburse. Please don’t use it to guess what your removal will cost, or what your insurance company is willing to pay. It may be useful, however, as information that will help you know if quotes you are getting from either the tree service company or the insurance adjuster are in a reasonable ballpark range. DBH = “Diameter at Breast Height”. You can use a tape measure around the tree and divide the result by 3.14. If it has multiple trunks, measure each one and add them up.

When you work with AGTree and many of the outstanding tree service providers in the Seattle area, you’ll be impressed with how professional they will be, and how consistent the quotes will be from one vendor to another. But if you encounter a quote that is either very high or very low, it may be a good idea to seek another quote just to “keep them honest.”

Oh, and by the way: Insurance companies are vital to our economic system, and insurance agents can be your friend. Get to know them … ask a lot of questions. And develop trust and knowledge of your policy so that if a claim arises, you won’t have any disappointing surprises.

We appreciate the stabilizing impact of insurance on our neighborhoods and communities. We have great relationships with the insurance adjusters in our area. We’re happy to work with them to solve your tree damage problems.

Here’s a checklist of things to do to maximize your insurance protection while minimizing your costs.

1. Get multiple quotes. Make sure you understand each company’s policy. Compare the actual benefit and be crystal clear on any deductibles.

2. Don’t insure your land … just your house rebuilding cost. Often, we naturally set the value of insurance to what we financed the home for. In Seattle, a big part of that cost is always the land. And most greater-Seattle houses have appreciated in value so much, they may be higher than actual rebuilding costs, as well.

3. Maintain your trees. (That’s what we do!) If you let a tree become a hazard, you make an accident more likely, and run the risk of losing part of any damage recovery to a claim of negligence. Wind-sailing is a great way to enjoy a tree while reducing the chance it will fall onto someone’s house.

4. Develop a trusting relationship with your neighbors. If you know them well and discuss issues like tree safety, you can work together to pool maintenance costs, encourage each other to manage trees proactively, and have some relational equity in case a tree falls and damages one another’s property.

5. Don’t be afraid to negotiate with your insurance company. Know going in that most of them are more profitable than ever in spite of all the weather events of recent years. So be nice, but smile and drive a hard bargain! Here’s a bibliography of information on insurance company performance. (and here’s the PDF).

*There’s no such thing as “standard”. So again, don’t take this column as advice…. talk to your agent, or to an consumer advising center… and be careful to do plenty of research.

Technically, every kind of cutting or pruning can be called tree trimming. But professionals in the business (and the dictionary) make a distinction between these flavors:

• Pruning is the trimming of a tree or bush for ITS benefit. Pruning results in better growth, longer life, or more fruit production. Think of pruning as therapeutic tree trimming. Specific types of pruning also include:
  • Crown cleaning or crown thinning involves trimming away dead branches, cleaning out light-depriving or insect-attracting foliage, etc.
  • Crown raising, crown lowering, or crown balancing, is what we call pruning that improves the health of a tree while reducing either the low branches that don’t get as much light , or the upper ones where the fruit is harder to pick. In all these cases, the crown becomes healthier due to less competition with itself.
  • Sometimes customers will ask us to “top” a tree. This is an obsolete practice that ruins a tree. We prefer to find healthy pruning approaches that either “drop the crotch” or balance the crown. Wind sailing is often the best solution (see below).
• Trimming is what we do to a tree to meet YOUR needs as the property owner: make it more aesthetically pleasing, be better balanced with the surrounding trees or the house, reduce danger of falling branches, or open up a safe clearance between branches and electric wires.
• View clearing is tree trimming for the purpose of improving our views of the scenery out our windows or from our decks.
• Wind sailing is tree trimming to reduce the impact of wind on the tree … to streamline the tree in the wind, prevent storm damage, improve the ratio of upper tree surface area to root mass, and increase the safety of your property.

If you’d like to discuss how we can help you balance your love of trees with your need to protect your family and improve your property values, please call us or request a quote.

Another cool thing about the Pacific Northwest is the trees. And we really do live with the trees. We enjoy their shade, play under them, listen to their leaves, smell their flowers, and taste their fruit. Everything we do in greater Seattle is framed by trees.

But living with trees can also be a challenge. They have a life cycle of their own, and when they come down, it can spell disaster for our lives and property.

So at AGTree Service we pride ourselves in finding the best balance between beauty and safety, between environmental responsibility and community values. We’d like to be your tree consultant, your tree management and preservation experts, and in times of trouble and danger, your trusted go-to guys.

In this blog we’ll share our experiences, comment on current trends and cool developments in the whole process of living with trees, and how trees around the world make life better for all of us. We hope you subscribe, share, and engage us in a lively conversation.

Adam Guy, CEO

Please give us your comments, ask us questions, share your photos of the work we’re doing for you. Tell us what you want, what direction we should grow, and how we can solve more problems, prevent more tree wind damage, remove more tree hazards — and also enhance more views, preserve more trees, reduce more tree disease and help minimize our individual and collective carbon footprints.

If it’s got anything to do with tree removal, tree maintenance, or tree preservation in Greater Seattle, we think we’ve earned a spot in the conversation. Yes, we love being the team you trust in tree emergencies; but we also want to be your first thought for your proactive tree maintenance and preservation, as well. We want to be in the thick of it!