Before you start your work with trees, it’s important to consider the type of insurance policy that you’ll need to keep yourself and the public you are working with protected.
With a specialist arborist insurance team in-house, we fully appreciate that working with trees is a hazardous business with a major incidence rate higher than the construction industry and many workers injured or suffering long term ill health issues as a result of a tree related accident. Forestry, arboriculture and directly related sectors expose operators to a wide range of hazards – lone working, chainsaw, working at height, work near to power lines, working with machinery (harvesters, forwarders, excavators, ATV’s) and work on steep ground to name but a few.
To ensure you and your workers are protected, we can arrange specialist covers which include:
- Tree Surgery / Arborist Insurance including liability, tools and machinery
- Forestry insurance
- Professional indemnity
- Plant and machinery
- Personal accident
- Motor fleet
In addition, some insurances are a legal requirement such as motor insurance and employer’s liability, if you have employees and although not a legal requirement, we always advise businesses to have sufficient Public Liability cover in place. Most, if not all businesses, come into contact with the public so having Public Liability in place protects you and your businesses in the event of legal action. If you do not have this in place and you are sued, then legal costs and any settlement will be your responsibility to pay.
When things go wrong it can be very serious so in addition to being insured, it is important that you consider health and safety at all stages of work too - simply having an insurance policy will not raise standards.
Raising standards across the industry is probably best done through improved working practices, implementing health and safety protocols and standards; all of which we can assist with via another of our specialist in-house service with H&H Safety.