Association Insurance

The board should have a copy of it. Atleast find out the name of the insurance carrier. You may be able to contact the agent that way if need be. However, it's better a board member or officer contact them instead of the individual owner.

I for one appreciate your interest in the insurance policy of your HOA. I wish many more had been interested in ours. It was greatly ignored and forgot about for the most part. Ironically, it did make up a significant cost each year to pay for it. We paid over $2K a year for insurance but paid it monthly. That way we could afford it.

There were some shocking details in our insurance policy. Basically, it didn't cover much of anything and it wouldn't cover the replacement costs of today's values. This is something that should be reviewed every 5 years or so. Our clubhouse was built in the 80's. The insurance said the replacement cost would be only $86,000. However, our house values have increased and construction costs have risen. That same clubhouse would cost most likely $90 - $100K to replace today.

What does this mean? It means if our clubhouse were to burn down yesterday, our insurance company would only pay us $86K after we paid the $1K deductible. That means that our HOA would have to put out an additonal $4 - $14K above what the insurance company paid out to replace. We don't have that kind of money, so we would have to have a special assessment. Depending how much difference your HOA would have to make up, this could be hundreds or thousands of dollars to the individual homeowner's to make up.

Our insurance has things such as HOA vehicle insurance. We don't own a HOA car! However, what the insurance will do is if a board member has an accident while on HOA business, the HOA's insurance will pick up the difference between what the board member's insurance pays out and additional expenses not covered. We were told this was NOT optional insurance and couldn't take it out of the policy. So be careful when reviewing to see if there are areas that you deem not needed. It may be a "package deal".

There aren't many insurance companies out there that insures HOA's. It's good to do some shopping around. There are new options out there to look at. There is now the optional "Terrorist" insurance. If your HOA is involved with a terrorist attack, this may offer some coverage. Keep in mind insurance covering flood or earthquake may require additional criteria. We have to have our area deemed a "flood zone" by the EMA of our state before they will let us have flood insurance. We had some homes that did flood only when it rained and then the water went away. The developer had drained the property wrong. The owner had to contact the authorities to have the area deemed "floodable" before even her own house insurance could be upgraded. So lots' of little details to watch out for!

Many of our website customers post a scanned copy of the policy on the members-only area of their website. It should be available to all members on request in any case.

Regards,
HOATalk

Thank you all for your responses. I fail to see why my Association Board would take issue with, and refuse to provide an owner's request for a copy of the Association insurance policy. Not only is it a standard request but can be a requirement from the insurance carrier when refinancing. Any more responses would be appreciated.