Insurance for committees

I am a new president of a HOA, 168 lots in Florida. We have an Architecural Committee that was voted in at our yearly homeowners meeting, the committee, according to our Articals of Incorporation, is a stand alone committee, has the final say & does not report to the Board of Directors when dealing with architecural issues.
I was told today by our insurance agent, the Architecural Committee is not covered by our insurance policy that covers our Board of Directors, it would be another $750.00 plus tax plus, plus. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas, or a policy that will cover all. Thanks, Tom

I'm interested in the concept of "stand alone" committee. According to most bylaws and Robert's Rules (www.robertsrules.com) there is no such thing. A board is not allowed to pass off its authority, and a community cannot be shut out of a committee's decision-making process.

On the point of insurance, that, too, is a matter for your bylaws and state law. Generally, only the boards are covered and that is often only for negligence. Many boards erroneously think they are insured to do as they please. In point of fact, they still are individually liable for malfeasance (fidelity insurance helps), intentional and willful misconduct and violation of all criminal laws.

Note: I'm always surprised by how easily many HOA's allow their board to use their HOA funds to pay legal fees the board members should be paying themselves....

My suggestion is get this committee back under the active supervision of the board. Get the board, with community approval, to accept or to deny recommendations by this committee and the insurance issue will go away, because the decision-making function will remain where it is supposed to remain with the Board. Unless committee members are elected by the entire community, this really is a clear legal issue....

Tom,

Articles of Incorporation seldom go into details about committees or other details of the HOA. They are usually broad statements of the purpose of the corporation.

Do you have covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs) for your HOA? How about Bylaws? It is more likely that a description of the responsibilities of the Architectural Committee is described in those documents. You should check there to see if there is more information about committees.

As DonnaS pointed out, a committee is an extension of the Board and not a corporation in and of itself. The only corporate entity is the HOA, and the HOA board has complete authority over anything that goes on in the corporation, including anything that goes on in a committee.

Insurance only has to cover the Board, since only the Board could be sued for actionable conduct.