Ep. 589 General Liability Classification for Tree Care Contractors: Ground Work Is Still Tree Work
Rancho Mesa’s Marketing & Media Communications Specialist Megan Lockhart sits down with Rory Anderson, Partner with the Tree Care Group, to talk about general liability classification for tree care contractors.
Show Notes: Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter
Host: Megan Lockhart
Guest: Rory Anderson
Producer/Editor: Jadyn Brandt
Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production
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Transcript
Megan Lockhart: You’re listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne™ podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive.
I’m your host, Megan Lockhart, and I’m joined by Rory Anderson, Partner in Rancho Mesa’s Landscape and Tree Care Group. Today, we’re going to talk about general liability classification for tree care contractors.
Rory, welcome to the show.
Rory Anderson: Hey, Megan. Yeah, thanks for having me here.
ML: Yeah, happy you're here.
Now, you recently wrote an article that addresses a common mistake where tree care companies may try to apply workers’ compensation payroll logic to their general liability. These contractors will often assume they can classify general liability exposure the same way they classify workers’ compensation payroll. So why is this assumption incorrect, and how do the two classification systems differ?
RA: I did, yes, I did write this. And this has been a common trend as of recently, the last couple of years, we've been seeing more general liability audits that are, you know, the audit team is cracking down on reclassifying landscape payroll into tree care. And so, yeah, there's two different classification systems. For workers' comp, it's the WCIRB, which is the Workers' Comp Insurance Rating Bureau.
And you are able to split, if you're a tree care company, you are able to split workers' comp payroll between 0106 tree care and 0042 landscape. Basically, the deciding factor there is whether or not you are elevated or not.
So if you're doing tree care work from the ground, you can technically be considered landscape and you can use 0042 for those operations. And what happens is tree care companies just assume that it works just like that on general liability as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't. It's a different governing system called ISO, and that's Insurance Services Office.
And ISO has a completely different definition of tree care work versus landscape. And basically, if you're a tree care company and your intent is to perform tree work, whether or not it's from heights or from the ground, that work needs to be classified in 99777, which is the tree care class code for ISO.
ML: Okay. Now you wrote that class code 99777 is described as intentionally broad. Will you explain what types of tree-related operations are included under this code and why ground-based work still falls under tree operations?
RA: Yeah, certainly. So again, I think for ISO, their main goal is to identify a company's intent. And so if there's a tree care contractor with a tree care credentials and they're marketing themselves as a tree care company and they're there to do tree care work, it's got to go in 99777.
ML: Okay, so for tree care companies that offer both tree work and landscaping services, what distinction determines when landscape general liability codes can be used and when payroll must instead be reported under 99777?
RA: Yeah, and it's a good question because there are tree care companies out there that might have a landscape division, landscape maintenance division. You can certainly use 99777 tree care. And I believe the code is 97050 for landscape maintenance. And if you have a true landscape maintenance division where you have employees that are dedicated to that type of work, that's when you would be able to offer both tree work and landscape maintenance services on general liability.
ML: Okay, that makes sense. That was all really insightful. Rory, if listeners have questions about managing their tree care risk, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
RA: Yeah, just give me a call at (619) 486-6437 or you can email me at randerson@ranchomesa.com.
ML: All right, well Rory, thanks for joining me in StudioOne™.
RA: Thanks for having me.
ML: Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at RanchoMesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.