Shop Smart: Check For Insurance When Choosing An Arborist

Trimming, pruning, or even cutting down trees is an important part of yard maintenance, and many of these chores can’t be done on your own. When you need help with those tall oaks and pine trees, your first instinct is likely to head to a professional tree service, which is definitely a smart move.

Want to know an even smarter move? Checking the tree service’s insurance. When it comes to potentially dangerous situations like tree care, you want to make sure you’re going with reputable, qualified, and insured arborists. Here’s how to spot a good company with good insurance.

Prevent Foreseeable Accidents

A lot of accidents can be prevented if you take the time upfront to ensure you’re working with tree specialists who are qualified and are knowledgeable about safety protocols. However, sometimes accidents are unavoidable. When that happens, you want to make sure you haven’t made the even bigger accident of forgetting to check an arborist’s insurance.

Why? Because if accidents or injuries happen on your property and the arborist isn’t insured, you may become liable. If you don’t want to pay for damages or medical expenses, you should check that your tree care specialist has both liability and worker’s compensation insurance, without any exceptions.

Ask for Proof of Insurance

The easiest way to determine whether your tree care specialist is insured is simply to ask. They will be able to tell you what kind of insurance they have and what it covers. Note that if you hire a company from another state, you have to make sure they also cover work in your state.

Know that asking about insurance shouldn’t be awkward, and doesn’t imply that you don’t trust the arborist. In fact, a good tree care company will be glad you asked, because they can demonstrate how they can be trusted. On the other hand, a less-than-splendid company will probably turn sour if you ask for insurance. They might show you false or lapsed proof of insurance, which is another issue to look out for.

Call and Confirm

The only way to make sure your arborist truly is insured is to call their insurance provider. A tree care company can provide you with the number to do so, after which the insurance company will send you the requested proofs of insurance. In some cases, liability and workers compensation insurance are covered by separate companies, so you will need call both to be certain.

Need tree help that is also properly insured? Contact Premier Tree Solutions today at 404-252-6448 or online here.