Ask for the certificate of insurance, not the promise

General liability plus workers’ compensation, sent to you directly from the carrier or agent. If a crew member gets hurt on an uninsured job in your yard, the claim can land on your homeowner’s policy. This single question eliminates most of the bad options.

When the certificate arrives, read three things: the dates (it should be current on the day of the work), the name of the insured (it should match the company on your quote, not a cousin’s landscaping business), and the coverage types. If a company tells you it does not need workers’ compensation, ask who pays if someone is hurt on your property — and listen carefully to the answer.

Check the credentials you can verify yourself

Anyone can put “certified arborist” on a truck. The International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) runs the best-known certification, and its public site lets you look a certified arborist up by name. A certification is not the only sign of a good crew, but a claimed one that does not check out tells you something about everything else on the quote.

Make the quote say what happens to the debris

“Remove the tree” can mean the trunk is still lying in the grass. Get it in writing:

  • brush chipped and hauled, or left for you;
  • logs hauled, left full-length, or cut to firewood length and stacked;
  • stump ground or left — and if ground, how deep and what happens to the grindings;
  • wood chips taken or left (plenty of people want them for beds);
  • who repairs ruts if equipment crosses the lawn.

Understand what you are paying for on a hard removal

Two companies quoting the same tree can be a thousand dollars apart because one is planning to rig it down over your roof and the other is planning to drop it into a space that is not really there. Ask how they intend to take it down. A straight answer is a good sign. We wrote up what a technical removal involves if you want to know what the careful version looks like.

Know what bad pruning looks like before you pay for it

  • Topping — cutting the top off a tree flat to “shorten” it. It produces weak, fast regrowth and a tree more dangerous in five years than the one you started with. A company that recommends it is telling you what it knows.
  • Climbing spikes on a tree that is staying. Spikes (gaffs) punch wounds into the trunk. They are normal on a removal and a red flag on a pruning job.
  • Taking too much at once. A widely used rule of thumb is no more than about a quarter of the live canopy in a year, and less on a mature tree. “Thinning” that leaves a tuft of leaves at the end of bare limbs is over-pruning.
  • Flush cuts and stubs. Good cuts sit just outside the branch collar, the slightly swollen ring where a limb meets the trunk, so the tree can seal the wound. Ask whether the crew prunes to the ANSI A300 standard; a professional will know what you mean.

Storm-season red flags

After a big storm, crews from out of state go door to door. Some are fine. The ones to walk away from share a pattern:

  • they want full payment, or cash, before any work starts;
  • they press you to sign today because “the schedule is filling up”;
  • they have no local address or phone number you can call next month;
  • they promise your insurance will cover everything, before your insurer has said so.

A modest deposit to hold a date is normal — ours is credited to the invoice. Paying the whole job up front to a stranger is not. If insurance is involved, call your insurer yourself and get the claim number before anyone cuts.

Utilities, permits, and property lines

  • Power lines. If a limb is on or near a line, call the utility first. Under OSHA rules, anyone not trained and qualified for line clearance has to keep at least 10 feet from an energized overhead line. A crew that shrugs at that is showing you how it handles the rest of the risk.
  • Buried lines. Stump grinding is digging as far as gas and electric lines are concerned. In Indiana, locates are requested through Indiana 811 at least two full working days before digging. Ask whether the company calls it in.
  • Right-of-way trees. A tree between the sidewalk and the street may sit in the public right-of-way, and work on it can need your city’s permission. The same goes for HOA rules. Find out before anyone cuts.
  • Neighbors’ trees. A tree that straddles or sits over the line is a conversation to have first. We will not remove or heavily prune a tree that appears to be on someone else’s property without written permission.

Compare three quotes line by line

Put the quotes side by side and make them describe the same job: the same trees, the same cuts, the same cleanup, the same stump depth. Most of the price gap usually disappears or explains itself. What is left is often insurance and method — which is exactly where you do not want the cheapest answer.

Four questions to ask every time

  • Who is on site running the job, and how long have they done this?
  • What happens if the weather moves us — do I keep my place in line?
  • What is the deposit for, and is it credited to the invoice?
  • What does the yard look like when you leave?

We answer all four the same way every time, and our deposit is credited to the invoice — see the deposit and payment options. Start with the free sign-up form and we will come put eyes on it.