Beech Tree insurance

[jillybean]

That Is certanly the case for me.

[DaveTaz]

Has anyone had quotes for insurance from any body other than RAP?

I've recently taken out a policy with NFU for my firewood business, public liability and employers liability.

I told them that I also carried out woodland management and own 21 acres of woodland. They have included the woodland management and woodland owner in my policy. It also covers for a certain amount of stock and machinery etc. This might sound a lot but I prmarily took it out as business insurance cover ...... it cost just uder £800 for the year but seems to be very comprehensive.

If any of you are selling products/services, delivering firewood etc it may be worth thinking about .... they are very popular with the Arboriculture community

[tracy]

We took out our insurance with Beechtree, and are now insured : Third party stuff, to work on other peoples land and best of all, our 'helpers' are all insured too. All for a very good price!

[Rod Taylor]

Looking at insurance recently and note in RAP policy definitions an 'eligible area' only contains trees up to and including 25 years growth. Tried asking RAP if this meant an ancient woodland containing many trees well exceeding this age was uninsurable. Reply was to contact insurers direct, so seems expecting the recipient of my money to know what they were selling was too optomistic.

Back to the old problem of it being very hard to find out exactly what cover you were getting.

Can anyone shed any light on the' no more than 25 year old question' or whether Birch Tree insurance has the same clause ??? Loath to get stuck on telephone automated menu selections so will get round to filling out BirchTree application form and winging off with specific questions to try and wade through the options.

[tracy]

Hi Rod

You can email Gary at BEECH tree (not birch!) directly and he will be happy to answer your questions. Or call his mobile. You don't get any automated stuff with him ;-)

Tracy

[Meadowcopse]

I recently modified my household policy to include a 2 acre plot 6 miles from my home.

I used NFU Mutual with their 'Land Away' public liability addition to the policy, which added an extra £60 p.a. to my premium and specifically included the mature trees I have on the land.

I was able to include a few other specifics (including commercial agriculture / grazing and straying animals and coppicing). Part of the specifics include mentioning that there were no public footpaths across the land, no watercourses or ponds on the land (although these could be included with an increase on the premium if they existed).

If part or all of a tree fell causing injury or damage to others through my negligence, then I would be covered - Unless it was being deliberately felled, for which there would be an expectation for a competent person with public liability insurance for that activity.

It is important to define a line between negligence and ignorance, as in most areas ignorance does not form a reasonable defence in law.

For my self due to a low level of woodland 'activity' - I have public liability for the land and it's use throughout the year, but any machine based activities have public liability for their use or appropriately through a contractor.

[Stephen1]

Does anyone know if the Beech tree insurance policy would cover you if someone managed to hurt themsleves if they found and interfered with a squirrel trap?

[thebeechtree]

Hi Stephen,

Gary of Beech Tree here.

The short answer is that the policy would indeed protect you in that your costs would be paid, either to defend yourself against the claim or to negotiate a settlement if you were found to be negligent. This last point (negligence) is what Liability insurance claims hinge on; the policy covers legal responsibility, not moral responsibility. Anyone can put in a claim or make an allegation against you and the policy will take up the case on your behalf. If the claim is spurious, or simply an accident with no negligence on your part, the policy will cover your defence costs. But if it's a genuine claim and you have indeed been negligent, then damages might be awarded to the claimant and the policy would then cover these too. All of this is subject to the (very few) exclusions on the policy wording, as you'd expect.

In this case of the squirrel trap, I would expect the claim to be defended as the claimant should leave well alone! (as opposed to the trap being left in a thoughtless place where any innocent person might be hurt by it, in which case I would foresee a degree of negligence)

Sorry, I tried to make this a simple answer and failed miserably - but it is 1.30am and I need to stop work and get to bed.

Tracy: a "holiday"?? Er, what is that exactly? I can't remember!

[Meadowcopse]

I have this bizarre fantasy (ooh er missus) of walking into the offices of a 'blame and claim' solicitors and slipping on a recently mopped floor as someone else happens to be coincidently videoing the scenario...

More seriously, I perceive an increase (in my interpretation) of daft and try-on claims where despite 'negligence' maybe of the land-owner - common sense of the injured party has been absent and external influences of TV advertising and other 'helpful' friends of family has been a factor.

This means insurance premiums and maybe exclusions increase in an area we can not be ignorant of and we should be grateful to 'thebeechtree' / RAP / NFU Mutual and others for being as clear and helpful as they can be in this area when they offer insurance opportunities.

A remote plot other than my own that I'm involved with has systematically seen an increase in vandalism, criminal activity (safe breakers capitalising on the remoteness) and random visitors (being away from the road and habitation) - I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone who shouldn't have been there tries it on with a claim or suffers some sort of injury due to the irresponsibility of uninvited visitors.

[woodlander]

On the matter of insurance, I have been offered a 7 acre woodland which is fronted by about a dozen nice houses over the years each owner has made a gate through to the wood and some have used it to dispose of garden waste, only 2 of these has agreed access I would have no objection to them accessing the wood (but would like to control the waste) but am concerned about the insurance liability is this going to make it difficult to insure ?also there is a TPO on the whole wood I thought this could only be applied to particular trees ?As its primarily pine it would be nice to clear small areas to grow natives, has anyone experiance of TPOs and the chances of getting a variation ?