Insurance companies that insure homes against fire are becoming increasingly concerned about fire safety. This is understandable. However, in their zeal to reduce their risk of financial loss, there is evidence in the Ojai Valley and probably throughout the state that they are beginning to require some extreme landscape changes in order for homeowners to retain their insurance coverage. Ojai Trees is gathering data to understand how widespread this practice is, to understand the genesis and reasoning behind these requirements, and hopefully to find a way to combat requirements that will damage or destroy trees.

This first came to our attention several months ago, when we were notified by a local citizen of some unusual and exceedingly strict requirements by one insurance company. Recently, we have become aware of several other cases by that company and others.

Those revelations include two especially damaging requirements. The first and most egregious is the requirement stated by one company that their insured clients “remove tree branches that overhang roofs”. While this sounds sensible, if you go around town and look at trees with limbs that are above roofs and imagine that they were all cut off at the roof’s edge it becomes apparent that many very large limbs would have to be removed.

Based on over 50 years of professional experience, I know that this type of limb removal would cause severe damage to these trees. It would remove a large portion of tree canopy in many cases, taking away a high percentage of healthy foliage that the tree relies on for photosynthesis. In many cases it would require large diameter cuts done in an inappropriate way (think “topping” only on the sides of trees). These large cuts would be susceptible to disease and decay, further compromising the tree over time. Removing such large limbs could also serve to imbalance the canopy, possibly creating a structural safety issue and resulting in a very unsightly tree.

The second requirement is that trees be spaced so that their canopies have a minimum of eighteen feet between them. This could also require large pruning cuts and has the potential to cause similar damage to the above requirement. Imagine that in your yard there are four trees that provide a closed canopy of shade, where the canopies are all touching each other and perhaps even intertwined. Now, mentally separate the canopies so that there is an eighteen-foot gap of open sky between all of them. In addition to the damage described above, both of these requirements would remove a great deal of shade above your house and yard.

These new requirements have been put forth under the guise of fire safety clearance. That seems misguided.  With very few exceptions trees do not cause homes to catch fire; burning homes do often destroy trees. Again, experience dictates that these severe pruning requirements could lead to disease, decay, structural safety issues, and even death of some trees. So, we ask what are insurance companies really trying to accomplish?

Ojai Trees is in the process of gathering data so that we can better understand the full extent of these insurance requirements. If you have received a notice of non-renewal due to fire clearance issues, or a set of strict requirements in order to maintain your current homeowner’s insurance, please email trees@ojaitrees.org and give us the following information:

The name of the insurance company, your address, and what they are requiring (you can email us their letter is you wish). This is purely for data collection to give us a better idea of the scope of the problem and help us decide how to best address this issue. This information will be kept non-specific and anonymous. It is our hope to help change this situation in a positive way.

—Jan Scow, Registered Consulting Arborist, Ojai