Water Leaks - HOA Insurance or Special Assessment

Hi Everybody
we have multiple water leaks due to bad rain. Our roof is leaking and we have been advised to replace the roof completely. Also our hallway tiles have some leaks. We are wondering if we should use our HOA insurance to do this or use special assessments. Any idea ? some people say that using hoa insurance will raise the premiums but my thought process is if we dont use it for major issues like this then what will be use insurance for ?

thanks

If the insurance will cover it, then I'd certainly use it. Are the leaks caused by damage from some event (windstorm, hail) or just the roof reaching the end of it's useful lifespan? Insurance generally will not cover replacing worn out elements, only damaged ones. So a roof damaged by an event might be covered, but an old worn out one wouldn't.

In either case, the damage caused by the leaks might still be covered.

Insurance typically covers unexpected (and expensive occurrences) like hail damage, but in this case, I'm also wondering how long has the roof been leaking - you say it's leaking because of bad rain, but how long has that been going on? Has it been repaired before? If so when (maybe there's time left on a warranty that might bring down the price of repairs?)

Those answers may determine if the insurance will cover this? You might also need to consider if you've had any recent insurance claims (within the last 3 years or so), what they were for and how much was paid out. Even if insurance covers this, you may be looking at a hefty insurance increase (as some of your neighbors have pointed out) or possibly getting dropped. Also, when was the last time the roof was replaced - if it's NEVER been replaced and you have an old building, you may have to fix this yourselves, so if there isn't enough in reserves, you probably are looking at a special assessment.

Go ahead and file the claim, but you might want to prepare the homeowners for the possibility of a special assessment. This may be a good time for your board to review the policy to see if it still meets your needs - for example, will the policy pay replacement costs based on today's prices (if not, you'd be looking at a special assessment if the paid claim wasn't enough to cover all repairs). Finally, if you don't have reserves or haven't obtained an updated reserve study, you'll want to get one as soon as possible, so you'll have some guidelines on how to prepare your budget now and in the future (for the next 10-30 years anyway)

Generally insurers may pay for contracted risk losses, but they're not alternative repair funders. If they were, nobody could afford insurance.

Failure to maintain or replace is a human choice of consequences. The choice factors are what could disqualify payouts for loss.

Respectfully, just ask your insurer if they are repair-underwriters or alternative forms of funding as opposed to risk-sharers.

Are you saying, KapS, that your HOA has no or inadequate reserves to pay to fix or replace these components?