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A neighbor lady called Gary McDevitt at work one day last year to let him know a car was in his tree. The driver escaped with a few bruises; the 25-year-old Japanese maple in McDevitt’s front lawn in Hillsborough didn’t fare as well. The 20-foot-tall tree had to come down. Yet when McDevitt talked to the driver’s insurance agent about recompense for removing the tree and planting a new one, the agent balked.

It’s only a tree, the agent said. Yet removing the dying tree and replacing it with even a sapling would run into the thousands of dollars. “I talked to landscapers who said if someone bought that tree, it might cost $20,000 to $25,000,” McDevitt said.

Homeowners often learn just how valuable their leafy green assets are only when they need to repair or replace damaged landscaping. Insurance companies that service high-wealth clients are responding to increasing requests for landscape insurance, but often homeowners don’t know how much insurance they’ll need. Five years ago, three Triangle entrepreneurs — one of whom had recently lost a large tree on his property — recognized the importance of homeowners knowing the value of their landscaping. The three developed software that could document plant inventory, assess plant health and determine plant valuation. They formed Horticultural Asset Management Inc. Their motto: “Money grows on trees, and we can prove it.”

Doug Cowles, president and CEO of HMI (though not one of the founders), said the company inspects plant material on residential and commercial property to inventory the location, size, type and health of each plant, then provides a valuation for individual trees, shrubs and plants. The resulting report identifies plants at risk for failing in an adverse condition, such as a hurricane or an airborne car, and specifies replacement values.

“We are considered the Kelley Blue Book standard for plant material,” Cowles said.

HMI distributes its software to certified arborists and tree-care companies across the country. Property owners or insurance agents contact HMI directly, and the company arranges for someone from that network to go out to the property and collect the plant data using a PDA loaded with the HMI software and search engine that allows the arborist access to information on about 12,000 types of plants. The software walks the arborist through specific information on plant height, diameter, location and eight symptoms that assess the health of the flora.

“There is a direct connection between the health of a plant and its ability to survive an adverse condition,” Cowles said. A study conducted by a large insurance company looked at losses following a Category 3 hurricane. Over half of all losses the insurance company incurred were caused by trees that failed during the storm. Of the trees that failed, 100 percent had a pre-existing health or structural condition, Cowles said.

“We look for those pre-existing conditions,” Cowles said. “The information we provide increases people’s understanding of their plant material. We’re trying to raise awareness that a lot of the losses that occur can be mitigated.”

The arborist uploads the data file created in the field to HMI’s Web site where it is processed at HMI’s corporate office. For between $300 and $500, depending on the size of the house and property, HMI produces a report that property owners use to learn the replacement costs of their landscaping and to discover any trees that might be at risk for causing damage. The company conducts hundreds of such property assessments a year.

Unlike pre-existing medical conditions that raise the cost of health insurance, the tree reports produced by HMI have no effect on insurance premium rates. Jason Ciannello, a territory underwriting specialist with Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. in Liberty Corner, N.J., compared landscape insurance to a jewelry rider on a homeowner policy. The rider might cover an aggregate loss of $100,000 and have a coverage limit of $50,000 per item.

“You can do a similar thing for trees, shrubs and plants,” Ciannello said. Homeowner policies for his high-net-worth clients automatically cover landscaping at 10 percent of the personal property value (the value of the contents of the home) with a limit of $1,000 to $10,000 or more per tree. Ciannello advises homeowners to ask how much their insurance company would pay out per damaged tree; the insurer can increase the per-tree limit. Policyholders should set the limit per tree high enough to cover the cost of removing the tree as well as replacing it.

Although Ciannello recommends landscape insurance only for owners of large landscaped properties, “landscape coverage has been overlooked,” he said. “It’s similar to flood insurance. People think they don’t need flood insurance if they aren’t near an ocean. But when a claim happens, it’s too late.”

Insurance companies turn to HMI for an accurate assessment of the replacement costs of the trees and landscaping. In Gary McDevitt’s case, he asked HMI to intervene when he and the driver’s insurance company had been deadlocked for several months over the cost of replacing his Japanese maple. HMI conducted an assessment and faxed the report to the insurance company.

“Within a day, the agent called me back and agreed to pay me 100 percent of what HMI told them my tree was worth,” McDevitt said.

The majority of HMI’s customers request assessments to learn which trees might be at risk for damaging a house or other structure in a storm.

“Trees are beautiful and, if maintained, a valuable attribute to any property,” Cowles said. “People can’t be passive when it comes to cohabitating with these assets.”

Nancy E. Oates is a business and real estate writer in Chapel Hill. Reach her at neoates@earthlink.net.