Royal & SunAlliance (R&SA) recently hosted a subsidence conference for over 75 tree experts from around the UK because over 70% of all subsidence claims involve the effect of trees on buildings.
The first staff arboriculturalist in the UK insurance industry, Gillian Glanville launched the conference with a demonstration of the newly developed Tree Risk Assessment Tool, known as the `TreeRat', developed in association with Marishal Thompson and Cambridge Architectural Research, as
part of an ABI-sponsored project.
RSA subsidence manager Tony Boobier said at the conference: "Sooner or later, we are all going to be hit with a subsidence event year, and the knee-jerk reaction may be widespread tree removal and cavalier tree
management.
"We have a great duty to try and limit both the financial and environmental effect by planning ahead."
