Everything changes the moment your feet leave the ground.
Commercial insurance for tree services, arborists and removal crews — the class most standard carriers decline, placed in the markets that actually look at the work.
Tell us the situation.
A licensed human replies the same business day — not an auto-responder, and not five producers calling at once. We shop it across our carriers and tell you if the policy you already have is the right one.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
What tree service businesses actually need.
General liability
Third-party bodily injury and property damage — the line nearly every contract names by default.
Without it — A dropped limb through a roof, a car or a fence is the defining claim of this trade, and the damage is done before anyone can react.
Workers compensation
Required in almost every state the moment you have employees. Priced on payroll and class code, which is why the class code is worth arguing about.
Without it — Climbing falls, chainsaw injuries and struck-by incidents are severe by nature, and this is the coverage standard carriers decline first.
Commercial auto
Vehicles the business owns and the people who drive them for work.
Without it — Chip trucks, bucket trucks and loaded chippers are heavy, frequently in traffic, and rated as such.
Inland marine & equipment
Tools, equipment and property in transit. It picks up exactly where commercial property stops, which is the moment the item leaves the building.
Without it — Climbing gear, saws, chippers and stump grinders are high-value, mobile and excluded by property coverage once they leave the yard.
Umbrella & excess liability
Extra limit stacked above general liability, auto and employers liability. Usually the cheapest million dollars on the policy.
Without it — A tree through an occupied structure exhausts a primary limit before the repair is even scoped.
Contractors pollution liability
Bodily injury, property damage and clean-up caused by a pollutant your work released — chemical drift, run-off, fuel spills. The standard general liability form excludes all of it.
Without it — Hydraulic and fuel releases from a bucket truck or grinder on a customer’s property are clean-up claims a general liability policy excludes.
Joe Gorman
Co-Founder | President of Commercial Lines
Came up in construction, on site and in the office, then moved into sales. Went out on a limb to become Boring’s first dedicated producer when the agency had no producers at all — and now leads the producer team. Landscaping is the class he writes most: grounds maintenance, tree work, irrigation and the spray operations that push an account out of preferred appetite.
The Grounds Guys — Franchise owners are referred to us by their corporate office. We are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, The Grounds Guys.
Five endorsements, and a certificate is none of them.
A certificate is evidence a policy existed the day it was printed — it says so on its own face. The coverage a contract is really asking for lives on the policy as named endorsements, and this is the list they come from.
- Additional insured — ongoing operationsCG 20 10Covers the general contractor for claims arising from your work while the job is in progress.Without it: They fund their own defence on a claim your work caused, then look to you for it.
- Additional insured — completed operationsCG 20 37Extends that cover to claims arising after your work is finished.Without it: The claim arrives years later, when the policy that should have carried it has renewed several times. Cheaper policies often exclude this or do not offer it.
- Primary and non-contributoryCG 20 01Puts your policy first and stops your insurer demanding a contribution from theirs.Without it: Two insurers argue about who pays while the defence waits.
- Waiver of subrogationCG 24 04Stops your insurer recovering from the party you agreed in writing to protect.Without it: Your insurer pays, then sues your customer, which ends the relationship.
- Per-project aggregateCG 25 03Gives each job its own general aggregate instead of sharing one across the year.Without it: Another project’s claims quietly spend the limit that was meant to cover this one.
Tract, condominium and apartment work is the exception that undoes all five — an exclusion for multi-unit residential removes the coverage before any endorsement can apply. What national homebuilders require covers that in full.
“They stay on top of our rates and premiums. They notify us of any potential increase and automatically shop all options to ensure we get the best possible rates. When we initially switched to them they literally cut our premiums in half for both of our companies…”
What tree service operators ask us.
Why will so few carriers write tree service?
Because the work combines high frequency with high severity, which is the combination underwriters like least. Crews work thirty to a hundred feet up on ropes and in lifts, next to power lines, over roofs and parked cars. A single mistake produces a claim far larger than the invoice for the job. Most standard markets decline the class outright, so placing it means going to carriers that specialise in it rather than shopping the same package everyone else quotes.
Is ground-only trimming rated differently from climbing?
Substantially, yes. Trimming from the ground is close to ordinary landscaping. Climbing, aerial lift work and removals are a different rate and often a different carrier entirely. If your operations are genuinely ground-only, that needs to be stated and documented, because it is worth real money — and if it is not true, saying it is the fastest route to a denied claim.
Does stump grinding change my quote?
It does, more than most operators expect. Grinding throws debris, sits close to buried utilities and irrigation, and reads to an underwriter as a separate operation from trimming. It is one of the handful of add-ons that moves a landscaping account out of preferred appetite on its own.
Do you write crane-assisted removals?
They are placeable, but they are underwritten as their own thing — the crane, the rigging plan and the operator’s experience all matter, and hired-in cranes raise questions about who is insuring what. Tell us before the job rather than after, because this is a class where a certificate issued for the wrong operation is worse than none.