Who Pays When Your Tree Falls on Your Neighbor’s House?
December 05, 2011If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? That interesting question is a philosophical thought experiment. A question that is more relevant to everyday life is, “If my tree falls on my neighbor’s house, who pays for the damage?” That particular question is very relevant to the citizens of Davis County, Utah, just a few miles north of Salt Lake City. The whole town was without power last week after being hit by a freak 100 mph wind storm.
If you’ve read some of my earlier blogs, you may know that I just moved to the Salt Lake area. I was minding my own business watching the news and was shocked to watch footage of sixty foot trees being blown over like little saplings, shingles were blown off almost every roof in town and ten semi trucks were blown over on the highway. Windows of school buses were shattered completely, but the drivers still finished their route to pick up the children. The school administrators deemed it safer for the children to be on the bus with some broken glass around them rather than standing at the bus stop and possibly getting blown over or hit by debris. Can you imagine having to make that decision?
I was happy to be safely at home watching the news broadcast. But when I saw the footage of the 100 mile per hour winds, it got me thinking, “Who pays for what when your tree blows over?” With the caveat that there may be some state by state differences in property laws and ordinances, here is what I found out:
Your tree falls on your house: your insurance company pays the damage (which is probably what you thought).
Your tree falls on your neighbor’s house: your neighbor’s insurance pays for the damage to their house.
Your tree falls on your neighbor’s car: your neighbor’s car insurance pays for the damage.
Your neighbor’s tree falls on your house: your insurance pays for the damage to your home.
Your neighbor’s tree falls on your car: your car insurance pays for the damage.
The tricky part is when the tree falls, but there is no damage to a structure – it falls and doesn’t hit anything, but you or your neighbor have a driveway full of tree. Get out the chain saw and start working because it is not covered by insurance. Some of the trees I saw in Davis County, Utah, had root balls over 8 feet tall (the news anchors were standing next to them for scale) – clearing large trees like that would take a lot of work, and a lot of neighbors to help.
Everyone interviewed on the news footage said the same thing, “I have lived here for (insert number of years) and I’ve never seen anything like this.” I hope they never do again, but it is certainly a wake-up call to make sure you have an emergency fund for some real emergencies, and pull out your homeowner’s policy or call your agent to review your coverage. You might want to take a glance at your neighbor’s yard to see just how tall their trees are while you are at it.