Was driving along a tree lined B road last week at about 40mph with other half and 4 year old son  - before the recent storm.   Nothing in front of me, cars behind.  Large branch starts falling from height, right in front of the car, across the full width of the road.  Slammed on the brakes and thankfully the branch hit the road just before the car hit the branch.  Thankfully no -one hurt, though bloomin' scary. 

 

I initially thought the only damage was a split bumper.  A closer look revealed a damaged undertray.  No problem I thought, just get the undertray changed.  Nice idea - except that the main dealer i got to try and fit the new part couldn't - as it wouldn't fit.  Turns out the front panel is bent and that needs replacing  - which means bumper off and radiator out.  Now looking at £400 + without trying to repair the bumber and before any more damage is found. Ouch. 

 

Not really worth claiming on insurance.  I've found out who owns the tree and am thinking of trying to claim the costs back.  Their defence will no doubt be that they inspect their trees regularly so this was an "act of god".

 

Be careful out there!

 

 

Sorry to hear, Dan.  Glad you and your family are OK.

 

Do you have Legal Services cover on your car insurance?

If so, it may be worth contacting your insurance company to see if they can claim the costs back on your behalf.

Good luck!

B.O.F,

 

Thanks for the response.  I do have legal cover on my car policy and spoke to them.  I also spoke to the insurer about making a claim. 

 

Legal people said that there is a common law duty on the tree owner to take action to prevent such events, but that as in my earlier post that they are likely to use as a defence that they routinely inspect their trees.  In law in those circumstances then they are likely to be treated as having acted reasonably and therefroe not liable. 

 

My insurer said that they would not pursue action against the landowner in the circumstances, presumably due to the low value involved. If I chose to make a claim it would therefroe be effectively be treated that I was at fault and I would  lose my no claims bonus.  This I'm not prepared to do, hence going to the landowner direct.  My case will be that despite inspecting his trees, the landowner was incompetent in doing so, as a branch that has by its condition been visibly dead for a long time went untreated, fell on the road, with unaviadable damage to my car and narrowly avoiding physical injury to me and my family.  I'm not hopeful, but we'll see what happens.  Car is in for repairs today.

Resolution of this issue was as follows:

 

Wrote to the landowner with costs - who referred me to his loss adjuster.  I wrote to them with full details and asked them to pay the bare repair costs.  Repairs in the end were a new front panel, replacement waterproof liner on one of the wheels and a new undertray.  £450 all in from Skoda dealer.  I didn't repair the bumper - which still has a split in it. 

 

My claim stated the landowner had failed in his duty of care to others to protect them from the risk of defective trees - particularly that he hadn't carried out adequate surveys.

 

Loss adjuster wrote back - my client has no liability.

 

I wrote back saying - not so fast Sunshine, let's see some records of tree surveys.

 

Loss adjuster wrote back - my client has no liability.

 

I wrote back stating I was going to pursue the matter through the small claims process of the County Court - and did so (was pretty easy - but a bit scary).

 

Two days later there was a cheque in the post - they obviously decided it was cheaper to pay up.

 

I'm happy with the outcome although I'm nervous of driving under trees now though - especially in Devon.

Great news for you. I'll be keeping the process in mind if anything similar happens to me

Well done Dan, you stuck at it and won.Also a lesson for those who have trees near a road methinks