Why can't we insure trees?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the U.S., we insure most everything we sell. So why not trees? Today on the show why trees aren't insured like other crops, and what it would take to get that insurance with extreme weather events on the rise.

Related episodes:
When insurers can't get insurance (Apple / Spotify)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:11.7	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:13.5	I'm Whalen Wong.
0:14.8	And here with me is Ellie Katz from Interlock and Public Radio in Michigan.
0:19.4	Hello, Ellie.
0:20.2	Hi, Waylon.
0:20.9	Good to be here. Great to have you. And Ellie, you Public Radio in Michigan. Hello, Ellie. Hi, Waylon. Good to be here.
0:21.8	Great to have you.
0:22.7	And Ellie, you are in northern Michigan, which I remember had a really bad ice storm earlier this spring.
0:28.9	Yeah, it was like the worst ice storm we've had since 1922.
0:32.4	There were power lines coming down, trees coming down.
0:35.1	It was pretty bad.
0:35.8	I remember just the scale of it was wild.
0:38.6	Over a million acres of forest land were damaged. The pictures look like the tops of all the trees
0:43.9	just got sheared off. They look like match sticks. It's pretty crazy. And that is in a really
0:49.1	heavily forested part of the state. And some people there rely on those trees for their livelihood.
0:55.1	I went to talk with someone like that. His name is Dale Forrester. Oh man, I bet he's heard all the jokes.
0:59.7	Yes. And Dale is a maple producer in Atlanta, Michigan. We talked right after the storm outside his
1:07.2	sugar house, which is where he boils maple sap down into syrup and sugar.
1:11.6	This tree here possibly will make it, but the one back there won't make it.
1:16.6	So I would guess, you know, we're pretty close to 50 percent,
1:19.6	just showing you trees here that aren't going to make it.
	...

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