The Easter storm that hit Nelson and felled so many trees is now hitting home owners in the pocket, with many having to fork out to have those trees cut and removed.
Tahunanui woman Judy Bartsch says she was overseas when a tree on her property fell in the storm, smashing her fence and falling in her neighbour’s back yard. She assumed insurance would have her covered, but was shocked to find out it only covered the damage, meaning the removal of the giant tree was at her cost.
“I thought my insurance would have covered the whole thing, until I rang them. I was really surprised because I thought I had a really good house policy,” she says.
Head of corporate affairs for State and AMI insurance companies, Craig Dowling, says their home policies only cover costs of removing a tree that has damaged a fence so that the fence can be repaired. They do not cover any additional removal costs that are not necessary for repairs.
Craig says they are processing claims from the storm damage in Nelson but it was too early to tell how many claims had been made.
Although the wind was an extreme weather event, Nelson arborists say that the damage could have been limited if property owners had maintained their trees properly.
Abseil Tree Care owner John Bush, says many of the trees that damaged private property had not been pruned or had been pruned incorrectly, making them vulnerable to the wind. “A lot of what we have been seeing could have been avoided,” John says.
Treescape’s Nelson business manager Lian Polak agrees that a lack of maintenance on trees, especially when they are young, increases the risk of trees being damaged by the wind.
“It’s not just because trees are large that makes them prone to wind damage,” Lian says. “Some of the biggest trees are the heritage trees and they didn’t get damaged because they have been well maintained.”
Aborists have been busy since the storm with John saying they were “flat out” with emergency call-outs immediately after the storm, “working into the night” on Thursday and have subsequently been on clean-up duty around the district.
Nelmac employs six full-time arborists who have worked long days since the storm attending to hundreds of damaged trees. Aborists say the majority of fallen trees are being chipped into garden mulch, although some “useable” timber is being sent to sawmills for processing.
