> Talking to his homeowner's insurance agent about this problem will
You're wrong. Agents are there to answer all questions. They do not file claims when you ask them a question. They will guide you the best route to take. Agents know their prospective regulatory laws of their State.
I would like to know, how you know if it's relevant in the OP's State? I know for a fact it's relevant in the State of Ohio, all States vary as I mentioned before. It may or may not be relevant depending on the OP's laws and precedents in the State they reside.
Negotiating a settlement without having knowledge in the field, is very poor advice.
Revise your claim. Your claim should include only the value of the tree before it was damaged, the cost of TOTAL removal (including cutting, hauling, and grinding out the stump so that a new tree can be planted), and the costs of submitting the claim (e.g., the cost of the arborist's estimate). Do not include the cost of a replacement tree (see below).
Does you local municipality or county have an arborist? Is there an agricultural extension? Can you pay to have them appraise the tree? I contacted a friend with our local park agency to appraise the value of two trees, based on how the agency values its own trees in this situation. Otherwise, get another arborist, one that is both licensed (if they are licensed in your area) and a member of a national professional society. (Add the cost to your claim.)
When the claim is settled and the old tree is removed, replace it with a much younger tree (5 or 10 gallon can). In a few years, it will be thriving and growing much more vigorously than a specimen tree the size of your old tree. And you will have some money left over from the settlement.
Yes. That's exactly what I meant. Let's say the homeowner fell on hard times, or was very wealthy and didn't have insurance. Would everything he owned be considered worthless because it wasn't insured? I don't think so.
CLUE is a national database. It's used in Ohio just as well as it's used elsewhere. It records more than just claims and payouts. A significant inquiry can be recorded.
There may be limits to how the data can ultimately be used in each state, but we're talking the extent of the impact, not whether there will be an impact. Use your insurance, and your rates will go up. Become a significant risk to the insurance company based on history, and you may not be offered a renewal.
If the OP goes to their homeowner's insurance company for this matter, at the very least, his premium will go up next year, and that's regardless of what state he lives in.
The liability for the damage rests with the driver, and his auto insurance company. Let the driver of the car deal with the higher auto insurance premiums due to his negligence. The homeowner should not get his homeowners insurance company involved. If the OP wants advice about the laws of his state, the place to go is an attorney. Not an insurance agent. I'm pretty sure that even in Ohio insurance agents can't practice law without a license.
Insurance companies (or their CEOs) don't get rich by writing out checks. Make no mistake about it, their business is making money, not taking care of you. In dealing with insurance companies, I've never been able to get anywhere near reasonable restitution without a battle. A regular adjuster will not EVER be able to do it for you, you're going to have to go farther up the food chain.
And, unfortunately, in the case of a tree (instead of a car), you're probably going to have to file a lawsuit. If your locality allows that large of damages in small claims court, and you feel sufficiently prepared to go up against the insurance company, you can do it very cheaply. But make no mistake about it, though, it's going to be a battle.
That's still not at all fair to him. That's like letting someone hit your car, total it, and letting their insurance just tow it away. They're taking a real-world loss to their property value by losing the tree, and in order to be made whole, the tree should be replaced - or they should be compensated for the loss of property value. That's not trying to stick it to the insurance company, that's just being made whole.
I've had to deal with insurance companies of idiots who have caused me harm and damage various times. Not in any case did the insurance company want to even come close to an honest restitution of the damages. I didn't ask for anything other than to be restored to what I had before their insured party caused the damages. (I don't think that's at all unfair) In every case, I had to fight a long, hard battle just to get that - but luckily, so far, I've been able to eventually drag it out of them.
If I were the person who caused the accident, I'd probably feel differently. But as an innocent victim, I have a hard time accepting the fact that I should just bend over and take a loss just because some insurance company feels like pocketing a little more money that quarter.
I would ask the company if they would be willing to undertake to have the tree removed, the ground made up and a new tree; of say 15ft; planted in its place. Then in addition you claim a figure of say $1000 for loss of amenity (not having the mature tree to look at).
I would not want to try to replace with like for like, not a hope in hell of it ever being a good tree.
I asked Commerce that if they had an adjuster give them a $500 figure, then would they be willing to come out and replace the tree or could they give me the name of the landscape company/nursery who would perform this work for $500. They said NO because they do not think the tree should be replaced at all.
I then asked them who made the assessment of the damage and what their qualifications were. They said they could not divulge that information and the damage assessment report could only be obtained by subpoena in court.
................... please people, can you top post so I dont have to scroll down thru all the previous person's message to find the message???? It just makes more sense if messages arent trimmed. Ingrid
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the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the endorsements or recommendations I make.
Call your town/city hall and find out if you can do this yourself. In other words, the judge who handles small claims might be able to provide a subpoena without your having to hire a lawyer. This could end up being cheap.
No. But if the message is trimmed, it makes more sense to leave the part a person is responding to at the beginning so they don't have to repeat what they are responding to.
It makes most sense to trim and then post he reply after each section of the trimming.
You failed to understand what I wrote. The claim must include the value of the tree BEFORE the accident. That is exactly how a claim in an automobile collision would be settled if the victim's vehicle were totalled; he would get what the car was worth before the accident, not what a new car would cost. In this way, the homeowner would receive compensation for the loss of the value of his property caused by the fatal damage to his tree.
In this case (a gardening newsgroup), my advice stands. (That's planting advice, not insurance or legal advice.) Replace the tree with something younger and smaller. It is likely to become better established and thrive better than planting a specimen tree that attempts to match the damaged tree in age and size. In the meantime, since a 5-10 gallon tree would obviously cost less than the old tree was worth, the homeowner would realize some cash as compensation for the time it takes the new tree to grow.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
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the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the endorsements or recommendations I make.
Now you see, without a lot of rearranging, I can't include the comments that lead up to yours. I could be anti-social, and top post again to keep some of it in order, but then anyone reading the post will get lost. Or I could spend some time pulling the relevant comments from previous posts to put this in context, but I'm going to let this stand totally out of context to show how top posting ruins the flow of the discussion.
Yes, I would trim out the previous comments that had nothing to do with posting methods. That's part of keeping the flow of the discussion going, too. But if we had to rank things in order of important, keeping things in order is more important than trimming the fat. Maybe you remember everything relevant in the thread, but these posts will be archived. A year from now, someone searching may find your post, and if you've top posted, it doesn't make sense. Even if someone doesn't trim, posting new comments at the bottom will result in a flow that makes sense. People read from top to bottom.
Top posting is rude. It says "my comments are more important than keeping the relevant parts of discussion intact". I'm probably wasting my time because top posters are so wrapped-up in themselves that they simply won't understand, and will refuse to change to the standard way of doing things because it just doesn't work in their self-centered world.
People who top-post, I tend to stop reading their posts after a while, because I don't want to have to scroll down then back up again, just to find out what the hell they think they're responding to. Their method doubles the amount of time it takes to read the post in context, while failing to double the value of the time spent reading.
Top-posting is outdone by people who leave nothing at all of the previous post but respond to it anyway. No context at all!
As for people who never trim the previous posts so that each addition makes consecutive posts longer & longer & longer, I rarely bother to scroll to the bottom for the newest addition, because I've learned over time if they're too dumb to know how to trim a post, they're too dumb to say anything interesting. In some newsgroups, however, this is called "cascading," & people make terse comments one after another until the posts are exceedingly long. This is a tradition especially in flame newsgroups, which pretty much reflects the value of never trimming.
I also tend to stop reading posters who don't have enough sense to turn off MIME or html features. Again, if they're too dumb to post properly, they're not apt to be bright enough to say anything of interest, so I'm not likely to miss anything useful or entertaining by skipping to the next.
The message from snipped-for-privacy@wi.rr.xx.com contains these words:
You're missing the point. Your comments are (supposedly) for *other* people to read; people who are not seeing your screen and your newsreader.
If you post at the top of a three-or-four person exchange, YOU know which one you're talking to but nobody else does. When other readers can't tell which point or which of several contributors you are addressing, it can look as if you're not listening to anyone except yourself.
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