Wires first, everything else second
Look up before you do anything else. If the tree is touching a power line, has brought a line down, or if you hear buzzing or see arcing:
Call 911 and your electric utility. Stay at least 30 feet away. Keep everyone else back, including from the tree itself and from any fence or metal the tree is touching. A downed line can energise the ground around it and anything conductive it contacts. Do not approach to look, do not move branches, and do not let a tree service start work — the utility de-energises first, always.
If no wires are involved, nobody is trapped, and nobody is hurt, this is not a 911 call.
The next fifteen minutes
- Get people out from under it. Everyone out of the rooms below the impact. If the tree came through the roof, treat the ceiling below as unsafe even if it looks intact.
- Shut off power to the affected area if water is coming in near fixtures or wiring — at the breaker, and only if you can reach it safely and dry.
- Shut off the gas if you smell gas, then leave and call the gas utility from outside.
- Photograph everything. Wide shots from the street, the tree on the structure, every damaged room from the doorway, and close-ups of anything cracked. Do this before a single branch moves. These photos are the difference between a smooth claim and a negotiation.
- Get out of the house entirely if a wall is visibly displaced, the roof is sagging, or you hear cracking. Structures settle after impacts.
What the tree landed on decides which policy responds
Before you call anyone about money, work out what is actually damaged. Different parts of your property are covered by different policies with different deductibles, and one event can open more than one claim.
The house itself — roof, walls, attached garage → your homeowners dwelling coverage. This is the main claim.
A vehicle in the driveway → your auto policy, under comprehensive. Homeowners does not cover cars. If the tree hit both, you are opening two claims with two deductibles.
A detached garage, shed, fence, or pergola → still your homeowners policy, but usually under other structures, which carries its own separate limit. Worth asking the adjuster about explicitly, because that limit is often much smaller than people assume.
Nothing but the yard → usually not a claim at all. A tree that came down and hit no structure is a landscaping expense, and filing a claim on it can cost you claim history for nothing.
Your neighbour’s house or fence → their policy responds, on the same principle that yours responds when their tree lands on you.
The tree stood on a street verge, sidewalk strip, or other public land → call your city or county forestry or public works line, not a private tree service. If it is blocking a road, tell them that first; it changes their priority.
Power lines are involved anywhere in the above → back to the top of this page. Nobody starts work until the utility de-energises.
The call order, and why
Insurer before contractors. Not because you need permission for emergency mitigation — you don’t, and policies generally require you to prevent further damage — but because opening the claim early gets you a claim number, an adjuster, and clarity on what’s covered before you commit to spending. Ask three things: what is my deductible, what is the debris removal limit, and do you need to inspect before the tree is moved?
Specifically: do not let anyone start cutting before you have photographed everything and spoken to the insurer. This is the single most expensive ordering mistake on this page, and it costs you in three separate ways.
- You destroy the evidence. Once the tree is sectioned and hauled, nobody can establish how big it was, which direction it fell, where it stood, or whether it was dead or hollow. That last one is the entire negligence question if it was a neighbour’s tree — and it is the difference between your deductible coming back to you and not.
- You can exceed a cap you didn’t know about. Debris removal is frequently a sub-limit rather than full coverage. Book the crew before you know the number and you personally own the overage, and Fixr’s emergency removal range runs to $5,000.
- You can end up outside the claim entirely. Some insurers want to inspect before the scene changes. Emergency mitigation — tarping, making the structure safe, stopping water — is always fine and expected. Full removal and repair, authorised before anyone from the insurer has been involved, is where costs get disputed.
Take the photographs, make the call, get the claim number, then dispatch. On a weekend or overnight, the claims line is still staffed — that is what the 24-hour number on your insurance card is for.
Tree service before roofer. The roofer cannot assess or repair what’s under a tree. Get an outfit with rigging capability and, ideally, a certified arborist — this is not a job for whoever knocks on your door after a storm with a chainsaw in the truck bed. Verify liability insurance and workers’ compensation in writing before anyone climbs. Fixr puts emergency tree removal at $450 to $5,000, noting emergency service runs “up to two or three times standard rates”, and crane-assisted removal at $1,500 to $2,500. If a crane is proposed, that’s usually a good sign about the contractor’s judgement, not an upsell.
Roofer immediately after. Tarp first, repair second. Fixr prices tree impact damage to a roof at $900 to $6,000, with an emergency premium of $100 to $300.
Structural engineer if the frame is involved. Cracked rafters, cracked trusses, a sagging ceiling, or a door that suddenly won’t close. Before the repair is designed.
Whatever you sign, don’t sign it on the doorstep
A tree through the roof produces door-knockers within hours. Some are legitimate local firms working their neighbourhood. Many are not, and the pattern repeats after every storm.
The tells, in rough order of how much they should worry you:
- An offer to waive, cover, or absorb your deductible. In many states this is insurance fraud, and it is usually funded by inflating the claim. It also tells you exactly how the rest of the job will be run.
- A contract that assigns your insurance benefits to the contractor (often labelled an assignment of benefits, or buried in a “direction to pay”). Sign that and they, not you, control your claim and its proceeds.
- A large cash deposit demanded before work starts, or payment in full up front.
- Pressure to sign now — a price that expires, a crew that is “only in the area today”, a clipboard while you are still standing in the driveway looking at your roof.
- Out-of-state plates, no local address, and a business name that doesn’t match the truck.
What to require before anyone climbs: the state contractor or arborist licence number, checked against the state board yourself; certificates of liability insurance and workers’ compensation sent to you directly by the insurer rather than handed over as a photocopy; and an itemised quote separating removal, debris hauling, crane work, and stump grinding.
Then sanity-check the total against the parts. Against Fixr’s emergency removal at $450 to $5,000 and crane work at $1,500 to $2,500, the reference points are standard, non-emergency removal at $400 to $1,100 with a national average of $435, a large 60 to 100 foot tree at $900 to $1,200, and stump grinding at $100 to $500 per stump. Emergency work on a house genuinely is expensive, and a crane genuinely can be the right call. But a single lump sum far above the sum of those components, quoted on the day with no breakdown, is a number aimed at your insurance payout rather than at the work. Get a second quote before you sign — the adjuster will expect one anyway.
Whose tree it was matters less than you think
Almost everyone’s first question is whether the neighbour pays. The honest general answer: usually your own policy responds, regardless of where the tree grew. The common rule across most US states is that the tree becomes the problem of the property it lands on. Your insurer pays, you pay your deductible.
The exception is negligence. If the tree was obviously dead, diseased, or dangerously leaning, and the owner knew — particularly if you told them in writing and kept a copy — your insurer may go after their insurer to recover what it paid. If that works, your deductible frequently comes back to you.
Two practical consequences:
- File on your own policy anyway. Do not wait while you and your neighbour argue about it. Waiting costs you mitigation time, and your insurer is far better equipped to pursue theirs than you are.
- If you have ever worried about a neighbour’s tree, put it in writing now. A dated letter or email noting a dead or leaning tree is exactly the evidence that converts “act of nature” into “known hazard” later. This cuts both ways — if a neighbour has written to you about your tree, deal with it.
State law varies genuinely here, and so does policy language. Let your adjuster make the call.
Documentation that pays for itself
Keep every receipt, including the tarp, the emergency call-out, and any hotel nights (loss of use is a standard coverage). Photograph the tarped roof and every stage of the work. Write down the name and time of every phone call.
And get the tree service’s estimate itemised — removal, debris hauling, and stump grinding are often covered differently. Fixr lists stump grinding at $100 to $500 per stump, and it is commonly the piece the policy declines.