On Jul 23, 2:18 pm, dpb wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
On Jul 23, 11:06 am, "Art" wrote:
"RicodJour" wrote in message
On Jul 22, 11:22 pm, Terry wrote:
My mother had a car hit a pine in the front yard and she said that the
insurance paid her for it.
My home owners insurance has a 1k deductible with replacement cost.
Lightning hit a very old very tall pine tree at the edge of my yard a
couple of days ago. The tree was split from at least half way up to
the ground. I am pretty sure it killed the tree and it will have to
be removed. I was wondering how much I could get for the tree and if
homeowners insurance should pay to have it taken down?
Read your policy. Lightning hitting a tree would probably be
considered an act of god.
Many acts of God are covered by policies. That is why you buy insurance.
On the other hand, damaged caused by wars..... acts of humans, may not be
covered.

- Please note the word I used - probably. The OP would need to check
his own policy to make sure.
- What's a tall tree "worth"?
- The OP hasn't been damaged - yet - the tree has.
- If he "wins" the battle with the insurance company, it's a "ding" on
his record and he'll pay for it eventually.
- Depending on the OP's location, the $1000 deductible could easily
exceed the cost of taking the tree down.
- Pine trees are one of the easier trees to take down.
- The OP made no mention of getting quotes. He has no idea what it
will cost and he's already talking about insurance claims.

The OP should come to terms with the fact that he'd be shooting
himself in the foot by making a claim.

I disagree on almost each and every point other than pines being
relatively easy to take out/down...

He probably has been damaged economically if the tree was a good
specimen the loss of it can have a negative impact on the house value.

Maybe so, but it's not insurable.

If the tree dies naturally - which is what lightning is, nature -
that's a negative impact. So, if it dies of disease or old age or
drought, should the insurance company pay for the loss. A tree limb
breaking off is a smaller negative impact, so do you feel the
insurance company should pay part of the value of the tree?

You could never get two people to agree on the monetary value - or any
other quantitative value for that matter - of a fully grown mature
tree. That makes it impossible to insure under a typical home owner's
policy. An insurance company is not going to open the floodgates to
claims indemnifying homeowners against tree loss. There'd be
literally millions of claims a year. It'd make the increased work
load and liability from a hurricane look trivial.

He is also out of pocket for cost of replacing it and/or removing it in
order to do so.

How do you replace a 40', or taller, pine tree? What do you think the
tree and root ball would weigh? Twenty tons? Forty? Obviously
that's not getting delivered and erected. So what's the alternative?
Here's a 15' tree, please weight 30 years? This makes no sense.

Insurance is, as you say earlier, carried for the purpose of being "made
whole" after an event which is covered. While this particular cost
might not be too much over the deductible, it makes little sense in the
scheme of things to pay premiums and then act as if one is self-insured.

If you know you're right it makes little sense to avoid the small
arguments with somebody...that is unless you're married to the person
and want to keep it that way. Insurance companies are like that. You
can be 100% honest and correct in making claims, and your insurance
company can still drop you. It isn't "fair", it just is.

R