Per-Occurrence Limit

The per-occurrence limit is the most your insurer will pay for any one covered event — whether that is a single bodily injury claim, a property damage incident, or a lawsuit arising from your tree service operations. A $1 million per-occurrence limit means the carrier pays up to $1 million for one incident, including defense costs on some policy forms.

For tree service companies, the per-occurrence limit should reflect the worst-case scenario at your most exposed job site. Consider: your crew is removing a 90-foot oak near a residential street. The tree falls the wrong direction, crushes a vehicle, damages a home's roof, and injures a pedestrian. The property damage and medical bills from a single incident like this can easily exceed $500,000. A $1 million per-occurrence limit is the industry baseline, but larger operations or those working near high-value properties may need $2 million or more.

Many contracts — especially with utilities and municipalities — specify minimum per-occurrence limits. A common requirement is $1 million per occurrence / $2 million aggregate, but some government contracts and utility right-of-way jobs require $5 million or more. When your base policy limit is not enough, an umbrella or excess liability policy sits on top and increases the effective per-occurrence limit without requiring a complete policy rewrite.

Remember that the per-occurrence limit applies per incident, not per claimant. If three people are injured in the same tree-fall event, all three claims share the single per-occurrence limit.