American Elm
Did you ever wonder why you could appraise and insure your silver service, grandma’s diamond earrings, and that Impressionist painting above your mantle, but not your trees and shrubs? Individual plantings in your landscape can cost well over twenty thousand dollars to replace, yet if they are destroyed, you will be lucky to get two thousand dollars from your homeowners insurance to move the remains off of your property.
White Oak
Through education, landscaping companies want homeowners to view their outdoor space more like an additional room, with assets and design features, just like their interiors. Douglas Cowles, President and CEO of Horticulture Asset Management (HMI), suggests that it is time for a change. “Horticultural items are the last substantial asset class that doesn’t have an assessment scale,” he says. “We have set out to change this, and work to change how everyone perceives landscaping.”
By negotiating with the insurance industry and seeking to educate property appraisers and real estate professionals about a landscape’s “living assets,” maverick in the field HMI is hoping to help homeowners protect and insure their cherished landscape plants in the event of fire, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. Cowles explains that homeowners are often clueless about the valuable horticulture on their property, and dumbfounded at the cost of replacing a mature tree or shrub. “Many property owners may not know the values of their trees or shrubs,” he says. “It is our goal that through the use of our assessments, homeowners can fully understand the total value of their property and have the ability to protect against or recover from a loss of any of these valuable assets.” While many landscaping companies will furnish a homeowner with care instructions for their trees and shrubs, HMI is the first national company to combine full care instructions with a catalog of all shrubs and trees and an appraisal of those items.
Silver Maple
“It has previously been difficult to quantify the value of landscape assets on a property, which has made it complicated to display this value to a potential home buyer,” said Cowles. “Because our assessments provide precise values through a report that is easy to understand, agents and brokers can clearly discuss this information and its benefits with the property owner.”
Homeowners can use an assessment in a number of ways, including how to care for their trees and shrubs. The assessment also comes into use when calculating a home’s selling price and for insurance and tax purposes (for calculating a deduction for a loss on your taxes). “Losing a mature tree on your property can change the whole feel of the landscape,” says realtor Nora May of Coldwell Banker in Baltimore. “I wouldn’t know, and I believe most homeowners wouldn’t know the replacement cost for an older tree.”
In the major markets where the plan is already in place, the reaction has been enthusiastic. David Thompson of Foxborough Nurseries in Jarrettsville, Maryland sees this as a program that will fit in with the lives of many clients, due to changes in attitudes about landscaping. “We are seeing a real increase into investment in outdoor space,” says Thompson. “People are deciding not to move, but rather they are adding on to their homes, including creating outdoor living spaces.” And these clients are more invested with their time than in the past. “Especially in the ranks of upper business, many clients are very interested in their landscape and the plants on their property,” Thompson explains. “They can grasp a hold on it. For many clients, we used to be one and done. Now they want to work with us to maintain the property. What used to involve minimal interaction with the customer has grown to real involvement.”
Eastern Redbud
In terms of horticultural valuation, many business entities, including the IRS and lending institutions, are starting to take notice. “There was an older gentleman who had raised some very exotic plants and specimens, and when he fell ill, he decided to donate them to a number of schools and horticultural institutions and gardens,” Thompson recalls. “He was told by the IRS not to even try to deduct values from his taxes, because there was no way to figure out what they were worth (the IRS figured not much). Well, instead he had a plant auction, and made more than a million dollars at the end of the day. It is time for a standard valuation of green industry materials so that homeowners can recoup the value of a lost mature tree.”
So perhaps it’s time to look at your landscape and future landscaping projects in a whole new way. We have always known that adding trees, plants, and shrubs to a property is beneficial on a number of levels, and now we can confirm that value and insure those natural assets against the worst that may occur.
Amy Feinstein is a freelance writer specializing in decorative arts, business, and marketing.
Contacts:
Coldwell Banker Cross Keys Office (Nora May): 410-235-4100
HMI: moneygrowsontrees.com or 866-937-6468
Foxborough Nursery: foxboroughnursery.com or 410-836-7023
