Community Insurance Programs Webinar
Every board inherits a stack of insurance policies, yet few members feel confident they fully understand what their community association insurance program actually protects. We recently hosted a knowledge-sharing session with insurance professionals Paul Mack and Chad Tiernan of Community Insurance Experts, who walked Florida condo and HOA boards through each line of coverage and flagged where the costly gaps hide.
This expert-led webinar moved through property, general liability, crime, directors and officers, and umbrella coverage before turning to the renewal process a board can actively steer. The throughline was that the strongest protection comes not from any single policy, but from understanding the fine print and working with an agent who explains it in plain language.
Disclaimer: This video is for educational purposes only. You will not receive credits for watching the recording. Credits were issued only to those that attended the course.
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Key Takeaways
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Your Agent Is Your Advocate: In a shrinking market, a board's best protection is a transparent agent who shops every carrier, explains coverage plainly, and negotiates in the association's interest.
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The Fine Print Decides Claims: Deductibles, exclusions, sublimits, and warranties quietly determine what actually gets paid, so every policy deserves a close read long before a loss occurs.
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Sublimits Can Void Your Umbrella: A sublimit on an underlying liability policy can lead the umbrella carrier to deny excess coverage entirely, leaving the association exposed on catastrophic claims.
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Price Is Not the Whole Renewal: A soft market gives boards leverage, but a lower premium alone does not prove the best deal; proactive communication and a marketing summary do.
Why Does Your Program Matter?
Insurance is easy to think of as one more line item, but it is really a contract that only proves its worth when something goes wrong. For a Florida community association, the right policies protect members and assets, satisfy statutory requirements, and meet the lender and mortgage conditions that unit owners depend on when they buy or sell.
Insurance as Another Contract
A board already manages contracts with dozens of vendors, and each community association insurance policy is simply another one, negotiated in advance to provide financial protection against an unexpected event. No two policies are written the same way; the terms buried inside them matter far more than the premium on the cover page.
The Agent's Real Job
Much of the value in the whole arrangement rests with the person reviewing and explaining these policies. A strong agent obtains quotes, negotiates, and presents options, but the harder and more important work is translating dense policy language into plain English so a board can make an informed decision. With fewer carriers writing this business every year, especially for smaller associations, an agent who simply emails a renewal and asks for a check at the last minute is not delivering that value.
Coverage That Protects the Property
The property policy is often the largest a condo carries, and a significant one for any HOA with a clubhouse, gates, monuments, a pool, or other outdoor property. It covers the buildings, those outdoor assets, and the contents inside, with hurricane and wind losses representing the biggest exposure, followed by fire, lightning, and water damage.
Reading a Hurricane Deductible
Since Hurricane Andrew, Florida property policies have carried separate, higher deductibles for hurricane and wind, and those are usually calculated as a percentage of the total amount of insurance purchased rather than a percentage of the claim. On a ten million dollar building, a three percent hurricane deductible means the association absorbs three hundred thousand dollars before coverage responds. Older buildings frequently carry elevated water damage deductibles as well. The better structure applies the hurricane deductible once per calendar year instead of per occurrence, so a single active season does not trigger it again and again.
Replacement Cost Versus Actual Cash Value
Roof valuation is where many associations get caught. Replacement cost coverage pays new for old, while an actual cash value clause pays a depreciated amount that can approach nothing on a roof near the end of its life. During the hard market, older roofs were often insurable only on an actual cash value basis; in today's softer market, replacement cost may be available again, but only if the agent actively shops for it rather than carrying the old terms forward. Ordinance or law coverage is worth confirming too, since it helps pay the added cost of rebuilding a damaged structure up to current code.
“If your roof is 15 years old, and it's damaged by a hurricane, you want the insurance company to pay for the cost of a new roof.” - Paul Mack, Community Insurance Experts
Liability and the Fine Print
General liability is typically the largest policy an HOA carries and a major one for condos. It responds to claims of bodily injury or property damage to third parties on the property, with slip-and-fall incidents the most common and water damage a frequent driver in larger high-rise buildings.
Third-Party Claims and Exclusions
In a heavily litigated state, much of this coverage is written on non-admitted paper, which lets carriers attach exclusions without state approval. Common ones include assault and battery, animal bites, and firearms. One association learned this the hard way when a resident's dog bit a guest, and the carrier denied the claim under an animal bite exclusion the board never knew existed, a dispute that ultimately cost well over a hundred thousand dollars to resolve. Reviewing a policy for these gaps in coverage before a loss is far cheaper than discovering them during one.
Sublimits, Deductibles, and Warranties
Even without a full exclusion, carriers limit their exposure in quieter ways. A per-claim deductible can stack into several payments when one event produces multiple claimants, where a per-occurrence deductible would apply only once. Sublimits grant partial coverage on higher-risk exposures, offering perhaps a quarter of a million dollars where a full limit would run into the millions. Warranties, such as a pool warrant requiring self-latching gates and posted rules, make coverage conditional on compliance a board can struggle to guarantee. The practical defense is to ask directly which deductibles, exclusions, sublimits, and warranties apply, and to have each of them explained.
Protecting the Board and Its Money
Two of the smallest policies by premium carry some of the heaviest consequences. Crime coverage guards the association's funds, while directors and officers coverage guards the people who volunteer to manage them.
Crime and Fidelity Coverage
Crime coverage, also called fidelity, protects the association's money rather than its buildings, responding to theft from operating or reserve accounts whether the culprit is an insider, a vendor, or an outside party running a phishing or wire-fraud scheme. Florida condo and HOA law requires a fidelity or crime bond on the funds held in the association's care, custody, and control. Boards should confirm the crime limit reflects current balances, including reserves, since those accounts have grown under stricter funding rules. The form matters as well, because a discovery form responds when a loss is found, which is critical given that theft is often uncovered years after it begins.
Directors and Officers Insurance
Directors and officers insurance, usually shortened to D&O, protects the volunteers who serve on a condo or HOA board, and often the manager and certain employees, against claims of general mismanagement, breach of contract, discrimination, failure to enforce the governing documents, and breach of fiduciary duty. For a policy this inexpensive, the breadth of protection is striking, which is exactly why board member liability insurance deserves the same scrutiny as the larger lines. These are manuscripted policies, so an agent who specializes in community associations knows where to source the strongest terms. Ideally, the coverage is written on a claims-made form with prior acts coverage, or at minimum a pending and prior date reaching as far back as possible, so switching carriers does not quietly erase years of protection.
When Claims Exceed Your Limits
An umbrella policy is the security blanket that sits on top of primary coverage, mainly general liability and D&O, and responds to catastrophic claims that exhaust an underlying limit. It has been a difficult market in Florida for the past year or two, with premiums climbing and only about two carriers actively writing umbrella coverage for community associations.
How Umbrella Coverage Works
When a catastrophic liability claim, such as a shooting, a wrongful death, or a severe injury, exhausts the primary policy's limit, that carrier pays up to its limit and stops. The community association umbrella policy then responds to the excess above it. Since so few carriers write this coverage in the state, placing it with the right one has become both harder and more consequential.
The Sublimit Trap
The costliest misunderstanding a board can carry is assuming an umbrella will always backstop a sublimited risk. In practice, when an underlying policy carries a sublimit for something like assault and battery, most umbrella forms deny any excess coverage for that exposure entirely, which can leave an association believing it holds catastrophic protection it does not actually have. Removing sublimits from the underlying policy is what keeps the umbrella intact.
“So, it's very important to make sure you don't have those sublimits. If you can get rid of them, you want to get rid of them.” - Chad Tiernan, Community Insurance Experts
Managing a Stronger Renewal
The renewal is where a board holds the most control, and in a soft market it holds real leverage. A lower price alone, however, is not evidence that the coverage could not be stronger or the terms better.
The Agent of Record and Second Opinions
Insurance does not work like collecting three vendor bids, because carriers will negotiate with only one agent at a time. The productive approach is to interview agents, choose the one who brings the most expertise and transparency, and name that agent of record, a designation the board controls and can change at any time. Short of switching, a board can request a free second-opinion review that benchmarks its program against comparable communities, with no obligation to sign anything.
What a Strong Renewal Looks Like
A well-run renewal usually begins around one hundred twenty days out, with carriers releasing quotes roughly thirty days before the effective date. Three things separate a thorough process from a rubber stamp. The first is proactive communication so the board is never surprised, the second is a marketing summary documenting which carriers were approached and how each responded, and the third is a full walkthrough of the final pricing, coverages, and endorsements. A thirty percent price drop in a soft market is welcome, but a lower price does not always mean better coverage.
“I caution you to not take a renewal, see that the price went down 30%, and just renew it since the price went down, because that doesn't necessarily mean that that's the best that's out there.” - Paul Mack, Community Insurance Experts
Coverage Built on Understanding
An insurance program is only as strong as a board's understanding of what sits inside it. The associations that fare best are not necessarily those paying the most, but those that treat each policy as a set of deliberate choices, read the fine print before a loss forces the issue, and rely on an agent who earns trust through transparency rather than a single annual email. Approached that way, community association risk management stops being a once-a-year scramble and becomes a steady discipline that protects the community's finances, its board members, and the owners who are counting on both.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a legal defense policy, and when does an association need one?
When a claim falls under an exclusion the carrier will not cover, a legal defense policy can pay the cost of defending the lawsuit. It does not cover the settlement itself, but it absorbs much of the legal bill on an otherwise uncovered claim.
Can we lock in our insurance rate for more than one year?
Most policies run twelve months, and though some carriers offer longer terms, be cautious about extending property coverage outside hurricane season. Doing so can let a carrier collect the wind premium while backing your renewal up to the start of the season.
If our management company holds association funds, do we still need crime coverage?
Yes. Funds can be stolen with no fault by the management company, so the association still needs its own crime coverage, and usually its own cyber policy, to stay protected.
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Ashley Dietz is the VP of Marketing at Campbell Property Management and has led the company’s educational and marketing initiatives since 2013. A Florida Atlantic University graduate with a bachelor’s degree in communications, Ashley specializes in community association education, digital outreach, and industry engagement for Florida HOAs and condominiums.
