Neighbors tree fell on our shed, tell me your btdt

[JustEm]

Title says it all.  The neighbors tree fell and destroyed our shed, fence, and  trampoline.  From my understanding this is a situation where our home owners insurance would deal with it. Is that correct?  We have a high deductible of $4000 so should I even bother filing a claim?  

[KungFuPanda]

It’s been my experience that this is covered by the insurance of the damaged structure no matter where the tree grew before it fell. It sucks, but you insure the car, not the deer that jumps in front of it. 

[JustEm]

9 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

It’s been my experience that this is covered by the insurance of the damaged structure no matter where the tree grew before it fell. It sucks, but you insure the car, not the deer that jumps in front of it. 

yeah, that is what I figured.  I'm trying to decide if it is worth filing a claim.  Our deductible is $4000 and I have no idea how much sheds go for. The shed was big (not sure sq footage will measure in the morning)  and has two lawn mowers, pool equipment, a tiller, bikes, and other things that I can't think of at the moment.  Some of that has to be destroyed looking at how much of the structure came down on it.  The shed was in great condition.

[Sneezyone]

13 minutes ago, hjffkj said:

yeah, that is what I figured.  I'm trying to decide if it is worth filing a claim.  Our deductible is $4000 and I have no idea how much sheds go for. The shed was big (not sure sq footage will measure in the morning)  and has two lawn mowers, pool equipment, a tiller, bikes, and other things that I can't think of at the moment.  Some of that has to be destroyed looking at how much of the structure came down on it.  The shed was in great condition.

Your losses probably total the deductible. I would get some estimates on replacement cost before contacting your insurance. If it's way above the deductible, I'd file. If not, I'd eat it. Filing a claim, even inquiring about it, could increase your premiums.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Sneezyone

[kbutton]

Large shed plus tree removal will likely be at least that much. 

[MooCow]

When we had straight line winds, our neighbors filed a claim for us on their homeowners insurance. We never had to do a thing.

edited to correct error

Edited December 17, 2020 by MooCow

[EmilyGF]

Sorry about your shed.

We dealt with this stuff from the other side last summer. We have a large tree that a few neighbors enjoy the shade from and we ended up talking with our insurance agent about it because one of the neighbors had a nervous breakdown and started calling trees "weeds" that needed to be destroyed. The idea with the insurance is that multiple people benefit from trees and therefore share the risk. (Imagine if all of a sudden everyone in a city or town had to cut down their trees due to liability concerns.)

However, if you had reached out to your neighbor and told them the tree was not cared for properly in the past, or expressed concern about a dead limb, for example, falling on your shed, and they didn't act, they then become liable.

We ended up having an arborist come out, assess our tree, and make a longer-term plan for tree health.

Emily

[KatieJ]

Our insurance agent told us that if the Neighbors tree fell on our garage we would have to turn it in to our insurance, but they would likely go after the neighbors insurance as well.

[JustEm]

thank you all.  we'll likely get an estimate on the work and go from there.  My guess from looking at it is it needs to be replaced not repaired and after talking to a friend who has some knowledge in claims depending on the size of the shed it is likely worth it to claim it.  The shed is at least a 12 by 16 just by eyeballing it in the dark but may be bigger.

[gardenmom5]

Your neighbors insurance should be paying for this.  Your insurance would go after them.

was it due to rot, a storm, or someone tried to bring it down?

[JustEm]

2 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

Your neighbors insurance should be paying for this.  Your insurance would go after them.

was it due to rot, a storm, or someone tried to bring it down?

A storm.  So, from my understanding we are the ones who file the claim and the deductible would be on us.  

[Ausmumof3]

We had a tree incident that was different to this and I spent way too much time reading about the laws.  Here they differ between states so it might be a case of looking at your local laws.  Tree roots can also become damaged and unstable if they are planted where vehicles are parked all the time or they don’t have enough room to grow out because of buildings etc so it can be quite complicated.

[gardenmom5]

9 minutes ago, hjffkj said:

A storm.  So, from my understanding we are the ones who file the claim and the deductible would be on us.  

if they are determined to be at fault - their insurance should pay the damage, and your deductible. 

 

[J-rap]

The same thing happened to us a few years ago.  The tree in our neighbor's yard came down in a storm and broke our fence and landed on the roof of our garage (not attached to our house).  Our homeowner's insurance covered it, although our deductible was quite a bit lower.  Our neighbor felt really badly about it (although of course it wasn't his fault!) and he repaired the fence for us for free.  They were great neighbors!

[JustEm]

5 minutes ago, J-rap said:

The same thing happened to us a few years ago.  The tree in our neighbor's yard came down in a storm and broke our fence and landed on the roof of our garage (not attached to our house).  Our homeowner's insurance covered it, although our deductible was quite a bit lower.  Our neighbor felt really badly about it (although of course it wasn't his fault!) and he repaired the fence for us for free.  They were great neighbors!

Yeah, we keep the deductible high because we can do most repairs by ourselves so aren't worried about most issues. For example, about ten years ago we had to file a water damage claim. At the time the deductible was $1000(different house, same percentage of replacement cost of house though.) The damage was $5000, so they cut us a check for $4000. We took $1000 from that check and did the repairs ourselves then pocketed the rest.

So, we can build a shed if need be. But if it will be less than $4000 we won't file the claim.

[J-rap]

1 hour ago, hjffkj said:

Yeah, we keep the deductible high because we can do most repairs by ourselves so aren't worried about most issues. For example, about ten years ago we had to file a water damage claim. At the time the deductible was $1000(different house, same percentage of replacement cost of house though.) The damage was $5000, so they cut us a check for $4000. We took $1000 from that check and did the repairs ourselves then pocketed the rest.

So, we can build a shed if need be. But if it will be less than $4000 we won't file the claim.

That definitely makes sense!

[Scarlett]

7 hours ago, hjffkj said:

Yeah, we keep the deductible high because we can do most repairs by ourselves so aren't worried about most issues. For example, about ten years ago we had to file a water damage claim. At the time the deductible was $1000(different house, same percentage of replacement cost of house though.) The damage was $5000, so they cut us a check for $4000. We took $1000 from that check and did the repairs ourselves then pocketed the rest.

So, we can build a shed if need be. But if it will be less than $4000 we won't file the claim.

We keep ours high as well.  We save claims for more catastrophic type losses.  It keeps our premiums lower plus you can’t file too many claims anyway without getting cancelled. 

[mommyoffive]

I am sorry that happened.  I had no idea that a neighbor's tree would be your problem when it falls.  

[kbutton]

17 hours ago, hjffkj said:

Yeah, we keep the deductible high because we can do most repairs by ourselves so aren't worried about most issues. For example, about ten years ago we had to file a water damage claim. At the time the deductible was $1000(different house, same percentage of replacement cost of house though.) The damage was $5000, so they cut us a check for $4000. We took $1000 from that check and did the repairs ourselves then pocketed the rest.

So, we can build a shed if need be. But if it will be less than $4000 we won't file the claim.

Cost of materials is prohibitive right now. We built an 8 x 12 shed this summer, and we probably spent $4000, easily. We didn’t think it would be that much, and we had to sub in some materials that were unavailable. Our shed was over-engineered, but still, we paid about the same for a 12 x 16 shed several years ago at another house, and that price included having them build on site vs. us. 

[JustEm]

14 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Cost of materials is prohibitive right now. We built an 8 x 12 shed this summer, and we probably spent $4000, easily. We didn’t think it would be that much, and we had to sub in some materials that were unavailable. Our shed was over-engineered, but still, we paid about the same for a 12 x 16 shed several years ago at another house, and that price included having them build on site vs. us. 

that is good to know.  I will have to keep that in mind and do some research if the adjusters price isn't satisfactory. 

[MEmama]

20 hours ago, EmilyGF said:

Sorry about your shed.

We dealt with this stuff from the other side last summer. We have a large tree that a few neighbors enjoy the shade from and we ended up talking with our insurance agent about it because one of the neighbors had a nervous breakdown and started calling trees "weeds" that needed to be destroyed. The idea with the insurance is that multiple people benefit from trees and therefore share the risk. (Imagine if all of a sudden everyone in a city or town had to cut down their trees due to liability concerns.)

However, if you had reached out to your neighbor and told them the tree was not cared for properly in the past, or expressed concern about a dead limb, for example, falling on your shed, and they didn't act, they then become liable.

We ended up having an arborist come out, assess our tree, and make a longer-term plan for tree health.

Emily

Ummm I hate our neighbors trees with a burning passion. We do not “benefit” from them, they are a constant, year round pita. I agree that neighbors trees can be weeds, hate them. Truly I am stunned by the idea that if they fall into our house or property we would be held liable?!?! How does that even make sense? 

[katilac]

On 12/17/2020 at 6:09 PM, MEmama said:

Ummm I hate our neighbors trees with a burning passion. We do not “benefit” from them, they are a constant, year round pita. I agree that neighbors trees can be weeds, hate them. Truly I am stunned by the idea that if they fall into our house or property we would be held liable?!?! How does that even make sense? 

I would really like to know what these trees did to you 😄

[gardenmom5]

On 12/17/2020 at 4:09 PM, MEmama said:

Ummm I hate our neighbors trees with a burning passion. We do not “benefit” from them, they are a constant, year round pita. I agree that neighbors trees can be weeds, hate them. Truly I am stunned by the idea that if they fall into our house or property we would be held liable?!?! How does that even make sense? 

Especially when we have no control over them.  Our neighbors had a massive maple clump on their side of the property line.  They didn't even live in the house,  they rented it out

The center was starting to rot, and on top of the huge mess it made every year,  I was starting to worry it would come down on my house in a storm.   - same age mapke trees on our dead end have come down.   One woke me up at 4am because the ground shook. 

 

Fortunately they chose to bring it down before listing the house for sale.   It took three days, and a lowball bid of $5K.  That was the lowball.

[JustEm]

1 hour ago, katilac said:

I would really like to know what these trees did to you 😄

Oddly enough, when I went over to my neighbors house just to let her know what happened and that I'd be filing a claim with my insurance and asking for permission to allow people into her yard when the adjuster comes, when they come to take the tree away, etc her reaction very hostile towards all the trees.  She even said 'ugh, they aren't my trees!  I hate them all."   I didn't know how to respond because she bought the house in July so they are indeed her trees. I do know she had one or two removed a few months ago.  

[MEmama]

7 hours ago, hjffkj said:

Oddly enough, when I went over to my neighbors house just to let her know what happened and that I'd be filing a claim with my insurance and asking for permission to allow people into her yard when the adjuster comes, when they come to take the tree away, etc her reaction very hostile towards all the trees.  She even said 'ugh, they aren't my trees!  I hate them all."   I didn't know how to respond because she bought the house in July so they are indeed her trees. I do know she had one or two removed a few months ago.  

Maybe she meant she didn’t plant the trees so she doesn’t consider them hers in that sense, that she’s stuck with someone else’s decision? 

We have trees in our front yard that don’t belong to us.

Since we had assumed they are our trees, being on our property and all,  this spring we tried to have them removed. Apparently they belong to the *town* and they did not approve their removal. Ugh. So now I’m stuck with them forever apparently.  Not only are they generally messy, they are ancient and drop limbs all over the yard every time we have a storm. I’m always afraid they are going to fall down. But worst is that their roots grow into our sewer lines and every year we have to pay several hundred dollars to have the lines cleared. The blockage, of course, stops mere inches away from the part of the sewer line the town is responsible for. 
 

I agree with your neighbor! Lol