insurance australia

MTS247

I was chatting with an insurance guy about the kind of coverage needed for cabling trees.

He seamed a little unsure, but did remind me that public liability was cover for damaging 3rd parties “while doing a job”, whereas professional indemnity cover was for professional opinions and reports.

So if you are to be covered by PI insurance, you would have to have insurance at the time of report/work/whatever and also have current PI insurance at the time of legal action.

I’m not sure if I never knew this or simply forgot.

I was wondering what others have been told about coverage.

Eric Frei

Act of God/Nature.

If the cabling is aged the onus is upon the tree owner to have it inspected and replaced etc.

If I cable a tree today and in 10 years time it fails, I can easily say that it aint the same tree I cabled as it changed over 10 years.

If the event it failed under was extreme, refer opening sentence.

SO it would likely be a claim on the tree owners insurance.

Get the buck to stop at the people who own the trees.

__________________

Sean Freeman

MTS247, I think that provided your PI and PL insurance are current and adequate you should be covered.

On a slightly different angle since trees as natural dynamic systems always have a significant element of unpredictability I personally think the most important aspect of undertaking any physical works (cabling included) is that the specifications for that work are crystal clear before anything is actually done...and that those specs are based on recognised standards.

I have used the US ANSI A300 Cabling, Bracing & Guying Standard and corresponding BMP as the bare minimum in writing recommendations for cabling, there are others the German's have some great specs and standards.

The US ANSI standards are easily obtained and very inexpensive.