What does general liability insurance cover for tree services?

General liability insurance is the most fundamental coverage for any tree service company. It responds when your operations cause bodily injury or property damage to third parties — meaning anyone who is not your employee. Common covered scenarios include a falling limb striking a homeowner's vehicle, root damage to underground utilities during stump removal, debris from chipping operations hitting a neighboring property, or a client tripping over equipment left on a walkway.

The policy has three primary coverage parts. Coverage A handles bodily injury and property damage liability. Coverage B covers personal and advertising injury — claims like slander, libel, or copyright infringement in your marketing materials. Coverage C provides medical payments to others, which pays small medical bills (typically up to $5,000) for third parties injured on your job site regardless of fault, helping resolve minor incidents before they become lawsuits.

Standard tree service general liability policies are written on an occurrence form, meaning they cover incidents that occur during the policy period regardless of when the claim is filed. Most policies provide $1 million per occurrence and $2 million general aggregate, though limits of $2 million per occurrence are increasingly common for companies doing commercial or municipal work. The policy also pays defense costs — attorney fees, court costs, and expert witnesses — in addition to the stated limits, which is a significant benefit given that litigation defense alone can cost $50,000 to $100,000.

It is critical to understand what general liability does not cover. It excludes injuries to your own employees (that is workers' compensation territory), damage to your own property or equipment, auto accidents (covered by commercial auto), and professional errors in arborist consulting (covered by professional liability). Pollution-related claims — such as herbicide drift or fuel spills — are also typically excluded and require a separate pollution liability policy.

When purchasing general liability, confirm that your policy includes completed operations coverage, which extends protection to claims arising after a job is finished. If a tree you pruned later drops a limb due to an allegedly improper cut, completed operations coverage responds. Also verify that your policy does not contain a residential exclusion, height limitation, or arborist exclusion — restrictive endorsements that some carriers attach to tree service policies to limit their exposure.