Uninsurable

Lori,

Sorry to hear about this. The problem is you had too many claims too close together. We experienced similar with our car insurance once. Had to pay for a high risk policy because a company refused to renew. After a year, we were able to get reasonable coverage again. Hopefully this is the case with your insurance issue.

Regardless of what the governing documents say, if you can't get coverage, you can't get coverage.

As a side comment: Medicare does not cover 100%. At best, they cover 80% of the costs.

When a person on Medicare or private insurance suffers an injury, the insurer will require the insured to complete a form identifying where the injury occurred. Your HOA will get dinged for the cost of the medical bill regardless if the person sues or not.

You do not hire, train or supervise the sheriff’s officers and should not be naming the sheriffs office as an additional insured on your policy. Drop the contract because you need liability coverage more than police patrol.

You also need to consult another broker. Each broker represent all the companies.

Shortly after I moved into my community, the master insurance carrier notified the board we were being dropped because we also had several claims too close together. I think it took 4-5 months before we got it replaced (fortunately the previous company gave us 6 months before waving bye by). Of course the premiums went up, so we increased our deductible. I didn't join the board until 2 years after moving in and they were still talking about this.

When I was on the board, we did more education on what homeowners could do to help reduce the risks and insurance costs, which in turn, could hold the like on assessment increases to cover higher premiums (that part always gets people's attention). I've spoken about us getting rid of our pool (insurance costs was an issue), the tree root disruptions of our sewer lines that resulted in us hiring an arborist to look at every tree to see what was a clear and present danger and/or was at the end of its life (and then we cut them down), getting rid of the basketball court (in horrible shape and an "attractive nuisance" anyway), encouraging people to add sewer and water line damage to their individual policies, etc.

As for your slip and fall episode, I remember we had a case where a lady and her sister were bringing in groceries and one tripped over a large tree root that was sticking out from the grass. She sued because she thought all she had to do was show us the medical bill and we'd cut a check and didn't like us explaining it didn't quite work that way. I remember going over to the house to look at the root and noticed it looked like one I have in my own front yard. I don't know if the grocery bags got in the way, but it was big enough to be seen, so I couldn't figure out how the lady tripped over it. I guess she'd gotten so used to it being there, she just didn't notice it and went splat. The case was settled after I left the board so I don't know what the cost was, but it did lead to another article where we asked people to be careful and to let the property manager know if this type of root was around the home. I think there's a way of sawing them down (not sure if that's the right word) to where it'll be less of a hazard and the tree won't die.

That's why it's always interesting when people howl about assessments being "too high." No one likes high prices for anything (I certainly don't) but never seem to stop and think about what's behind them. There's usually more than one reason and sometimes, getting the costs under control mean you have to make tough decisions. Having pools is great in the summer, but too much rowdiness along with watching for the people who piss or shit (or both) in the pool, trespassers who wreck the area and other stuff may prompt you to consider if having that pool is worth it.

So sorry to see your insurance troubles, Lori. I h ope the rest of your Board is working on this dilemma with you..

And, now I'm nervous: I mistakenly remembered our premium as $90,000+ for '23. So when it came in at $101,200 for '24, I was like, Whew! But at the 5/28/24 Board meeting, I see a New Business agenda item called "Insurance Changes in California-Discussion with. Bxxx Kxxxxxx insurance broker."

So, I reviewed our premium for '23 and it was exactly the same as '24, $101,200! OMG! So WHAT is going to be sprung on us owners on 5/28??? In CA, via the Open Meeting Act, agenda items are supposed to be clear and not vague. The item title I posted above sounds like a cozy little chit chat w/our broker. I'm concerned that for the first time since we got rid of a terrible Board at the end of '19, our current Board is going to blindside us with a vote on a big special assessment. I'm thinking they'll call it an "emergency." This is not like this Board, so maybe I'm being paranoid bases on a very bad recent Board.

I'm not wanting to take away from Lori's issues, but felt this is kinda related.

In most states, there would be nothing for police to enforce on private HOA roads because the traffic laws don’t apply to them. At best any HOA traffic rule is an HOA violation,

> We also told our district office tgat officers were welcome to park in front of our clubhouse
> to catch up on writing their reports or take a lunch break. The clubhouse is on a city street
> that runs through the community, and the sight of a police car can persuade sone people to go
> elsewhere to do dumb and illegal stuff because they never knew when a cop would be there.

This is an old and revered practice that is reputed to be highly effective. Restaurants and other businesses are happy to have the police as customers! In recent years I believe there's been some effort to crack down on "police discounts" and so forth - but I'm reasonably certain it still goes on in some way. I've worked in food service in the distant past, and there are "sandwiches" and there are "really fine sandwiches".

Bill

The city police do not handle traffic issues within our association since they are private roads, however they do patrol our streets and handle any crime that has occurred.

My opinion is that people were making claims on the HOA insurance that should not have. The process is usually going to the homeowners policy first and foremost. Jumping to the conclusions something is a HOA responsibility can kill a HOA.

Are you saying, Melissa, that in your current HOA, you as an owner can make a claim against your HOA's master insurance???

Our CC&Rs strictly prohibit owners making such claims, and I assume (incorrectly?) so do most.

What does the insurance Article or section in your CC&Rs say about insurance, Melissa, in a case where someone hurts themself on ANYthing in your separate interest (private property) no matter WHO built it/installed it, etc.?

How/who "determines" if an incident is "HOA-related?""

I asked about your "current" HOA, not the one from many, many years ago. Melissa.

You make it sound like too many owners have been somehow making claims against the HOA insurance and collecting.: "...people were making claims on the HOA insurance that [sic] should not have." And I'm saying, at least per my CC&Rs, that would be impossible. One caveat is that the Board may read the CC&Rs insurance section incorrectly and screw up.

What I'm trying to underwent is: can an owner pick up the phone and call the agent for the HOA's Master insurance In your HOA, Lori? Or in most, or some?

Or, did this transpire via the owner getting an attorney to start the rough stuff?

Again, I'm sorry this is happening to you.

We don't allow the owners to contact our insurance company directly. They usually hire an attorney first and then we get contacted, so we have to submit the inquiry to our insurance company and let them deal with it.

If you've never gone through this, it usually happens this way: letter arrives out of the blue from a resident or guest who "fell" on the sidewalk somewhere on the property. The first step isn't a lawsuit - it's a letter from the attorney fishing for information and wanting to know who the insurance company is. In this latest case, we sent the letter to the insurance company and they denied any responsibility for the claim because it didn't happen at the clubhouse (long story, the policy was written wrong and the adjustor wasn't very smart - because we were covered). Anyway, the slip and fall attorney got notice that the accident wasn't covered and dropped the plaintiff - not worth their time and effort because they didn't think they would recover enough if the insurance company wasn't involved. Once we got the insurance coverage issue fixed, low and behold the slip and fall attorney picked up the case again, because now it was worth it for them.

Do I sound bitter? Now I have a treasurer who only sees $ signs and wants us to just be self-insured for general liability. I told him I'm not going to take responsibility for that if we do have a big liability case and it ends up bankrupting the association and all the directors get sued. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Owners are often named as an insured, and can make a claim on the association's policy. You can look it up on davis-stirling for CA. Most owners are probably not aware of this. I'm not sure of other states.

I think this mainly applies to property damage when the association has some coverage for condo units, in which case the unit owner can make a claim for their unit even if the association is reluctant to make a claim. In the case of a slip and fall, the owner might be able to make a claim on the association's Medical Expense coverage for accidents on the property. In the case of a larger slip and fall (or other accident) beyond regular medical expenses, that would be interesting to see.

The association, not the owner, is usually the trustee for the claim.

It looks like you are exempt. Perhaps your owners are not insureds?
From https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/D/Duty-to-Submit-Claims
"Most CC&Rs make unit owners an insured under the association's commercial general liability (CGL) policy, which means they can file a claim against the association's policy. If a unit owner contacts the association's agent/broker, the representative is obligated to inform the carrier.

Upon receiving notice of claim, every licensee or claims agent shall immediately transmit notice of claim to the insurer. (CA Code of Regulations, Title 10, Chapter 5, Subchapter 7.5(d).)"

It's very clear in our CC&Rs, Melissa, that owners must buy thier own insurance for everything--loose or attached-- in their condo. every year, our PM sends out a eblast to get proof to them proving we owners have HO6 coverage.

I guess detached homes are different.

Geez, Lori, maybe your Board needs a new treasurer.

To put numbers on this issue, our total cost for insurance (property damage, general liability, D&O, workman’s comp) was $86,000. We just got the invoice for this year. The total is $178,000. Luckily, we have 820 homes so we can spread the cost across them and we have the cash to pay this. But it certainly wasn’t in our budget.