Condo Insurance

Condo InsuranceIf you have purchased a condo, the bank will require insurance to protect its investment in your home. You may, however, need more insurance to cover your personal items, liability or fees that may be charged to you regarding shared areas of the building like the lobby.

You will need two separate policies to protect your investment:

  1. Your own insurance policy. 
    This provides coverage for your personal possessions, structural improvements to your apartment and additional living expenses if you are the victim of fire, theft or other disaster listed in your policy. You also get liability protection.
  2. A "master policy" provided by the condo/co-op board. 
    This covers the common areas you share with others in your building like the roof, basement, elevator, boiler and walkways for both liability and physical damage.

To adequately insure your unit, it is important to know which structural parts of your home are covered by the condo association and which are not. You can do this by reading your association’s bylaws.

Sometimes the association is responsible for insuring the individual condo unit, as they were originally built, including standard fixtures. The individual owner, is only responsible for alterations to the original structure of the apartment, like remodeling the kitchen or bathtub. Sometimes this includes not only improvements you make, but those made by previous owners.

The condo association is responsible only for insuring the bare walls, floor and ceiling. The owner must insure kitchen cabinets, built-in appliances, plumbing, wiring, bathroom fixtures etc.

Unit assessment
This reimburses you for your share of an assessment charged to all unit owners as a result of a covered loss. For instance, if there is a fire in the lobby, all the unit owners are charged the cost of repairing the loss.