Trends in financial damage related to urban tree failure in the Netherlands

•The results show a significant increase in the annual frequency of incidents of damage due to tree failure caused by natural processes over the past decades in the Netherlands.•The results show a significant increase in the magnitude of claimed compensations and paid compensations for urban tree failure damage over the past decades in the Netherlands.•The results show absence of a trend in the frequency of claims and payments to compensate damage of urban tree failure over the past decades in the Netherlands.•Within municipalities, paid compensations due to tree failure are found to range from €0 to € 49,296 with an average of €2,244 per paid compensation.•The analyses showed a statistically significant annual increase of paid compensations per lawsuit of € 2,862.