On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:50:40 -0700, RicodJour
wrote:


Maybe so, but it's not insurable.

It may not be insured, but its 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?

It depends what the policy says. I doubt if any normal policy pays
for limbs, or old age, and I don't know if any policy will pay for
lightning, wind, drought or disease, but they could write one and sell
one if they wanted.

I can imagine them doing so in places where the likely loss is low,
and they think it will attract customers.

Despite the name of the policy, many homeowners policies cover, or
used to, things stolen from the policy-holder and his family even when
he is not at home.

Also, you've heard of people getting their hands insured. Special
policies are written on request. Sometimes they bid out at Lloyds of
London, which is a group of insurers who will insure unusual things.
I think AIG in NYC will also bid on such things.

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.

The same way they decide how much a house with its yard is worth.
Take the value with the tree and subtract the value without, and
that's the value of the 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.

Maybe they won't. Maybe they don't. But up until this sentence you've
been saying it's impossible.

There'd be
literally millions of claims a year.

They could put limits on the size of the tree for which claims can be
made. And they could have a schedule of payments for trees of certain
heights of certain species. My health insurance policy had a schedule
of how much they paid for various procedures.

I absolutely agree with whoever said here that one shoudln't insure
for losses he can bear. He should act as a self-insurer and most of
the time, he will get the profit. And he doesn't have to pay for the
paperwork that the insurance company has to do, or bother with his own
side of the paperwork. In the long run, he will come out ahead the
great majority of the time.

But some people, maybe like my mother, like to buy insurance, and
there are comparnies ready to sell it to them. If they are not going
to make money insuring trees at one premium, they'll increase the
premium.

My mother used to buy credit-card insurance. All this did is pay off
her balance if she died. The premium increased as her unpaid balance
increased. However she always paid the entire bill every month. Her
premium was low, but her unpaid balance was zero at the start of every
month, and no more than 30 to 200 dollars at the end of almost every
month. Then she turned 65 or 75 and they wouldn't sell her the
insurance anymore. So she made me the primary name on that credit
card, to have the insurance. I'm so stupid, it took me years to
notice that now it wasn't enough for her to die. I would have to die
instead for the insurance to pay off. I don't think they gave a
discount for my being 40 years younger. But she still bought it.

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.

They would get money, not a replacement tree.

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