What You Should Know About Condo Insurance
As a condo owner, you do what you can to protect your investment. This should include purchasing the right condo insurance in CT. Your condo association’s master policy, or HOA policy, will cover damage to your condo building, grounds, and other external features. Your condominium policy, therefore, needs to cover your personal possessions, appliances, and sometimes installed fixtures and other attached features in the unit.
Condo Association Policy
A condo association’s insurance policy typically comes with a couple of basic coverages:
- Liability protection. This helps to cover legal and medical costs if the association faces a lawsuit.
- Property coverage. This helps to repair and rebuild the common areas of the building when damaged by covered perils, such as the roof, elevator, basement, courtyards, and walkways.
Depending on the size and extent of your association, you may require additional insurance coverage as well, such as:
- Workers’ Compensation Insurance
- Directors and Officers Liability Insurance
- General Liability insurance
While the association likely has a “master policy” to help protect the building against certain risks, it typically doesn’t safeguard the interior of your place. You’ll likely need your own insurance to do that. A condo association master policy can be one of two types:
- ‘All-in’ condo master policy. Also known as a ‘single-unit’ master policy, this type of coverage protects the fixtures in your condo such as the appliances, wiring, plumbing, and carpets, but does not cover personal property you own.
- ‘Bare walls-in’ condo master policy. This policy doesn’t cover anything contained within your walls. It may not cover your condo’s plumbing or electrical systems.
You will need to buy more of your own condominium insurance if your association has a “bare walls-in” condo master policy than if it has an “all-in” condo master policy.
Condo Policy
Condo insurance policies typically cover what the condo association’s master policy doesn’t cover. Condo insurance provides protection for the inside of your condominium. The external areas fall under the jurisdiction of your condo association and must be covered under the association’s insurance policy. Typically, condo policies cover:
- The interior walls
- Your appliances
- Your personal property and valuables
Additionally, it will protect you against liability claims if you are responsible for another person’s injury or property damage.
While most Connecticut condo associations’ master policies cover each individual unit, including betterments and improvements, some do not. Ask your association what carrier and agency write the master policy and find out whether it’s all in or if they’ve opted out of covering the individual units. Regardless, the master policy does not provide protection for your contents or protect you from the liability claim.
When buying a condo unit, you will need to provide a certificate to prove that the association has insurance.
For help finding the right condo insurance in Connecticut, and the surrounding cities, contact the independent insurance professionals at North American Underwriters. Serving New Britain, Bristol, Farmington, Plainville, and all of Connecticut; we will work with you to ensure you have the right amount of protection for your specific situation, all at the right price.