Who Pays

[VR38]

Make a claim, your insurance company will soon seek who is responsible, if you pay excess and they find roads or council liable you will be refunded and not penalised.

 

[kingyinperth]

Fingers crossed your bad luck is over mate! as stated try the council,you never know what they might say and no harm in asking.ALSO,make sure your insurance company doesn't try to screw your no claim bonus discount as you are not at fault.If they do,change to AAMI :smoking:

 

[vkberlina]

I might be barking up the wrong tree here (sorry just had to) but if you can prove negligence that the tree was reported as dangerous, diseased etc you may be in with a shot, but in reality the time taken to chase it up it would be cheaper just to part with your money and pay up.

Scott

 

[Grennan]

go the council, you might be surprised - I think this falls under the same thing as when someone is mowing and a rock hits your car or a pothole destroys your rim - mileage can vary.

Yeah and Ill give you the hot tip, chasing the council or Vicroads for damage to wheels for potholes is a long and drawn out process.

OP, this is why you have insurance, for accidents that happen to your car. The council will laugh at you for even attempting to get money out of them for a tree branch falling.

 

[Immortality]

At the very least make a complaint to the council so they can take better care of tree maintenance in the future.

 

[Tasmaniak]

At the very least make a complaint to the council so they can take better care of tree maintenance in the future.

Yeah buts its a Gumtree... Its what they do unfortunately. We had a similar incident when a branch came crashing down and took out our power and telephone to the house. We were responsible for paying the electrician to replace our main fuse and damages to the house.

 

[Rajesh Koothrappali]

Well this is such **** bad luck!

Overhanging trees on country roads scare the **** out of me. Driving along at 100km/hr and one snaps and falls, with really unlucky timing, you're dead. :-(

I'd be pursuing it to see where you can get. The insurance company will want to pursue it too as they'll be out of pocket. Be interesting to see how you get on mate. Let us know.

At the very least make a complaint to the council so they can take better care of tree maintenance in the future.

Hell yes!

Yeah buts its a Gumtree... Its what they do unfortunately. We had a similar incident when a branch came crashing down and took out our power and telephone to the house. We were responsible for paying the electrician to replace our main fuse and damages to the house.

But what happens if a tree branch from a tree on council (or someone else's) land falls and kills someone?

 

[Tasmaniak]

public liability.
SPausnet paid to rerun a new power and Telstra fixed the telephone... eventually lol. We had to pay for damages to our house where it was ripped off the side of the house. Put it through the

 

[c2105026]

I had to deal with this sort of thing when I was at the NSW RTA as engineer. I had two instances where the road environment (or our activity) caused damage to vehicles. The RTA protocol was to get the claimant to make statement, with pics, and send it off to the legal department. Not sure how successful you'll be, but worth a shot.

That being said if someone was seriously injured or killed, public liability lawyers would have a field day.

 

[Yergin]

Best case scenario is that you will pay excess and the council may reimburse part of that. it doesn't hurt to speak to the council but do it respectfully otherwise guaranteed you'll get nowhere!.

most likely outcome is that you'll have to pay and wear it!. sucks but that's why we have insurance.

Also with regards to premium next year, your insurance may be ok with it, however some insurance companies penalise you regardless of fault, 1 company wanted to charge me $2600 to insure my Caprice due to a not at fault claim where the other driver was identified!!.