Tree Surgeon & Arborist Insurance
Tree surgery combines three of the things insurers rate most heavily, and it does them simultaneously: working at height, running a chainsaw, and dropping heavy objects near buildings.
What Underwriters Actually Ask
That is not a reason it is hard to insure. It is the reason the questions are specific. What an underwriter wants to know is not your turnover so much as whether you fell or only prune, how close you work to buildings and highways, whether you use a MEWP or climb, and what tickets your climbers hold.
Get those answers right and the cover is straightforward. Describe yourself as general landscaping when half the work is dismantling trees over conservatories and you have a policy that will not respond to your main activity.
What Tree Surgeon Insurance Covers
Public liability
The core cover, and the limit matters more here than in most trades. Damage to a roof, a conservatory, a vehicle or a neighbour's property from a falling limb is the everyday claim. £5 million is the common ask, £10 million on local authority and highways work.
Employers' liability
Compulsory from the first employee, at a £5 million statutory minimum. Climbers and groundworkers engaged as labour only subcontractors count, and in this trade most crews are assembled that way.
Tools, plant and equipment
Chainsaws, chippers, stump grinders, climbing kit and a MEWP if you own one. High value, highly portable, and a frequent theft target from both yards and vans.
Hired in plant
Your liability for a hired MEWP, chipper or crane, which under standard hire terms usually includes continuing hire charges while a damaged machine is off hire.
Goods in transit
Arisings, logs and equipment moving between sites, plus the trailer. Easy to overlook and routinely outside a van policy.
Professional indemnity
Where you produce reports: mortgage surveys, subsidence reports, tree condition surveys or advice under a Tree Preservation Order. Advice that turns out to be wrong is a different claim from a dropped branch.
Where The Cover Stops
Wordings differ between insurers, so treat these as the usual position rather than as universal fact. Where one of them matters to you, it is worth checking on your own schedule before you need to.
Felling declared as pruning
The single most consequential misdescription in this trade. Dismantling a mature tree over a building is a materially different risk from crown reduction, and a policy written for the second will be tested hard after a claim arising from the first.
Working height and proximity limits
Some wordings carry a maximum working height, or conditions about proximity to buildings, highways and overhead lines. Those are the conditions most likely to bite, because the job that goes wrong is usually the awkward one.
Damage to the tree itself and to the property worked on
Property in your care, custody and control is typically excluded, which can include the tree and sometimes the structure you are working from or over. Worth getting written back where the values justify it.
Qualification conditions
Insurers commonly require relevant certificates of competence for chainsaw use, aerial rescue and the specific operations carried out. An accident involving an unticketed operative is a difficult claim.
Overnight tool storage
The usual overnight vehicle condition applies, and chainsaws and climbing kit are exactly what gets taken. Where the van sits on a drive rather than in a locked building, say so before the policy is written.
Felling, Dismantling And Pruning Are Three Risks
To a client it is all tree work. To an underwriter they are separate activities with very different claim profiles, and the proposal form usually asks for the split as a percentage.
Crown reduction and pruning keep the mass in the tree and the work controlled. Straight felling in open ground is predictable. Sectional dismantling over a building, with rigging, is where the serious property damage claims come from, because the margin for error is measured in feet and the thing underneath is somebody's roof.
Give the split honestly. A business doing eighty per cent pruning and twenty per cent dismantling over buildings is priced differently from one doing the reverse, and the difference is far smaller than the cost of having the wrong description when a limb goes through a conservatory.
Tickets, And Why Insurers Ask For Them
Arb is one of the trades where formal competence is directly tied to the insurance, because the operations are dangerous enough that an untrained operative is a predictable claim rather than an unlucky one.
Expect questions about certificates of competence for chainsaw maintenance and cross cutting, felling by tree size, aerial tree work and aerial rescue, and the use of a MEWP where relevant. Insurers also ask about method statements and about who supervises, because an experienced climber with an inexperienced groundworker is still a risk.
Keep the certificates current and keep copies. They are both the condition of cover and the evidence after an incident, and chasing a lapsed ticket after an accident is a conversation nobody wants.
Reports, TPOs And Advice
A growing part of this trade is not cutting at all. Tree condition surveys, mortgage reports, subsidence investigations and advice on works to protected trees are all professional services, and they carry a professional indemnity exposure rather than a public liability one.
The practical risk is advice that proves wrong: a tree assessed as sound that subsequently fails, or works recommended on a tree under a Tree Preservation Order where consent was required. The loss is financial and sometimes legal rather than physical, which is exactly what public liability does not answer.
If you produce written reports for payment, that belongs on the policy. It is inexpensive to add and awkward to arrange retrospectively.
How To Choose Insurance For Tree Work
Arb is a trade where a generic contractor policy fits badly and a cheap quote usually means the activities were described loosely. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not claim to be the best choice for your business. These are the things that decide whether the cover works.
Did they ask for the split between pruning, felling and dismantling?
If nobody asked, the policy has been written on an assumption. That assumption gets tested the first time something lands on a roof.
Is there a working height or proximity condition, and can you live with it?
Better to find the restriction when buying than when claiming. Ask directly what the policy will not cover you to do.
Do they ask which tickets your team hold?
Competence conditions are standard in this trade. A broker who asks is placing the risk properly; one who does not has left a condition for you to discover.
Is report writing covered if you do any?
Surveys and TPO advice are professional services and sit outside public liability. Easy to add, awkward to backdate.
Does the quote handle hired in plant and continuing hire charges?
Hired MEWPs and chippers come with hire terms that make you responsible well beyond the machine itself.
Factually, we ask for the activity split before approaching the market, we check working height and proximity conditions and tell you what they mean on your jobs, and we ask about tickets and about report writing rather than waiting for them to surface. We are a broker, so it goes to several insurers rather than one.
We do not publish a starting premium for tree work, because our own book does not hold enough arb policies to support a figure we could stand behind, and a number without that behind it is worth nothing to you.
What Moves The Price
Every policy is priced on the business behind it. These are the things that move the premium:
- The split between pruning, felling and sectional dismantling
- How close you work to buildings, highways and overhead lines
- Turnover and wageroll, including labour only crew
- Whether you climb, use a MEWP, or both
- Plant and equipment values, owned and hired in
- Claims history and the tickets your team hold
We are a broker, so we take it to several insurers rather than quoting one. Call 02382 000820 for a quote.
What We Need To Quote
- Percentage split between pruning, felling and dismantling
- Typical working height and proximity to structures
- Estimated turnover and wageroll
- A plant and equipment list with values
- Certificates of competence held by the team
- Whether you produce written reports or surveys
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
- Landscaping and groundworksWhere the work is ground level and the tree work is occasional.
- Plant insuranceOwned and hired in MEWPs and chippers, including continuing hire charges.
- Public liabilityLimits, and the care, custody and control exclusion explained.
Common questions
What insurance does a tree surgeon need in the UK?+
Public liability is the core, commonly at £5 million and often £10 million for local authority or highways work, because damage to a roof or a vehicle from a falling limb is the everyday claim. Employers' liability is compulsory from the first employee and labour only crew count. Then tools and plant for chainsaws, chippers and climbing kit, hired in plant cover if you take MEWPs on hire, and professional indemnity if you produce reports or surveys.
Why is tree surgery insurance more expensive than landscaping?+
Because it combines working at height, chainsaw use and dropping heavy material near buildings, usually at the same time. Underwriters rate the activity rather than the job title, so a landscaper who occasionally fells and a tree surgeon who mostly prunes can sit closer together than the labels suggest. What moves the price most is the proportion of sectional dismantling over structures.
Who insures tree surgeons and arborists?+
A narrower set of insurers than general landscaping, because of the height and chainsaw exposure, and several are reached through brokers rather than direct. What separates them is comfort with dismantling over buildings and the working height they will accept. Ask which markets are being approached for your activity split rather than how many insurers a broker lists.
Do I need qualifications for my insurance to be valid?+
Commonly yes. Insurers usually require relevant certificates of competence for the operations carried out, covering chainsaw use, felling by tree size, aerial tree work and aerial rescue, and MEWP operation where relevant. These are conditions rather than suggestions, so keep them current and keep copies, because they are what gets asked for after an incident.
Am I covered if a branch damages a customer's roof?+
That is what public liability is for, subject to the limit and to the policy describing the work you were actually doing. The exposure to check is property in your care, custody and control, which can be read to include the structure you are working over or from. Where the values justify it, that is worth writing back explicitly rather than assuming.
Does my policy cover tree reports and TPO advice?+
Not under public liability. Written surveys, condition reports and advice on protected trees are professional services, and a claim that the advice was wrong is a financial loss with nothing physically damaged. That needs professional indemnity. If you charge for reports, it belongs on the policy from the start.
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