insurance non renewal

I'm in Washington and our insurance company threatened to non renew us last year for one issue. We corrected that and they backed away. Then they threatened us a second time over a different issue, so we are having to take care of that. I am growing a little tired of threats of non renewal.

We have not had any claims but I have been told if we file 2 claims we will be non renewed. Or if we file 1 claim regarding an issue that they don't want to cover (i.e., a risk that they were not aware of) then they will drop us.

I'm not seeing the purpose of insurance if we cannot use it....

HenryS7, your profile says "Arizona"

Would you be willing to share what issues they were threatening non-renewal over?

At the time I moved into my community, It had received a non renewal notice due to too many claims being filed. The details escape me, but I think one claim involved a fire and another sewer damage from tree roots. As I recall, the association contacted at least three companies before we found another carrier - and it did cost more money.

So I would suggest you start with what the letter said. It seems to me if you had denied claims, the insurance company wouldn't be out of any money, so it would be easier to increase the premium (something insurance companies do sooner or later). You might paleontology your agent to see if there's an appeal process where you can bash out any issues and get the insurance restored ( brace yourself for higher premiums)

Take a look at those denied claims and see if there are any patterns. For example, if you have a problem with free roots damaging sewer lines, it's probably time to bring in an arborist to dialogue community and see what types of trees you have and which ones are putting the common areas at risk. You may have to cut those trees down - that's what we ended up doing.

It's also possible the company is getting out of the HOA master insurance policy business because the risk is too much. If that's the case, I'm sure Surfside played a big role in that. If they're no longer writing such policies, you'll have no choice but to look elsewhere.

While you're doing that, It would be a good idea to do some sort of risk assessment for the entire community, so you can identify other areas that need to be addressed. Maybe your documents are so bloody outdated, anyone insuring you may find claims would be higher.

Your finances may also play a role. Do you have a reserve fund? When was the last time you had reserve study done? Are you funding it according to the study's recommendations? Having a healthy fund could mean the insurance company would have to pay out less and that would make them happy.

Or you have too many delinquencies. That means fewer dollars to maintain the common areas and find reserves - that makes banks and insurance companies nervous.

Finally, visit your state government website and look up the state department of insurance to see if they can help with appealing to the company or if you can file a complaint if you feel the company didn't follow it's procedures before deciding to cancel the coverage. This means you need to read the policy, so if you're on the board, all of you need to pull out a section and get busy.

Don't know if you consider this mindless jabber, but I hope it helps. If so, you should remember there's no silver bullet in HOA land and things are never as simple as you think. You may not want to do all this, but just because it's time consuming and a pain in the butt doesn't mean you don't have to do it.

We did. Too many claims. We received a non renewal notice 9 years ago. Shopped high risk companies. With that came exclusions, high deductibles, and very high premiums. By a stroke of luck, our agent went back to our insurance carrier. Deductible and premium went up, but they didn't tack on extra exclusions. We've had 1 claim 5 years ago. If I knew then when I know now, we wouldn't have even filed that claim.

Just shopped insurance and changed companies. We able to save 50%. We are 40 year old stacked 2 high condos. Companies that will even insurance us are hard to find.

Yeah, unfortunately it's the world we live in. Want to know why most businesses operate the way they do, follow the money. Want to know why OSHA rules exist, follow the blood.

where can we get "surplus market' insurance in WA?

our regular company declined renewal