Condo Insurance

What Is Condo Insurance?

Condo insurance (HO6 insurance) is the policy that covers your unit’s interior from the walls in, your personal property, and more. Unlike single-family homeowners who must insure their home’s entire structure, you’re only responsible for insuring the interior. Your condo association’s master insurance policy covers your condo unit’s exterior and common areas.

That’s why you’ll sometimes hear condo insurance referred to as “walls in” or “paint-in” coverage. It’s designed to complement the master policy’s coverage.

So while the master policy primarily covers the condominium’s structure – including the exterior, roofing, framing, wiring, piping, insulation, and the drywall – your condo policy covers your unit’s:

• Interior walls, ceiling, and floor coverings.
• Improvements or upgrades.

It also offers essential protection beyond your unit’s interior.

Available Endorsements

Just like a homeowners insurance policy, you can easily add coverage to your condo insurance. These endorsements are usually pretty popular:

• Additional Loss Assessment coverage - While our condo policies automatically include $2,000 in loss assessment coverage, folks like to have a little extra. This helps pay for your portion of a shared loss – called a special assessment – that exceeds the condo association’s emergency funds.

• Flood Insurance - We’re one of the few insurance companies that offers private flood insurance as an endorsement, which means you don’t have to manage a separate policy, premium, or deductible to protect your home from flood damage.

• Animal Liability Insurance - This extends your personal liability coverage to cover damage your fluffy friends may cause. So if your dear bumbling Pomeranian accidentally trips your neighbor, this can help pay for their injury.

What Your Condo Association’s Master Insurance Policy Covers

Your HOA fees help pay for a master insurance policy that covers your building’s exterior. It essentially splits the dwelling insurance burden with you, which is why your dwelling limits are much lower than what you paid for your unit.

There are three types of condo master insurance policies:

• Bare Walls Coverage - This is a bare bones master policy. It only covers the building (its exterior, roofing, framing, wiring, insulation, and drywall) and common areas.

• Single Entity Coverage - This covers everything a bare walls policy does, but it also covers built-in fixtures in individual units.

• All-in Coverage - Of the three policies, this one offers the most protection. It covers the structure, common areas, built-in fixtures, plus individual unit additions and improvements.

How Much Condo Insurance Do I Need?

Because your policy primarily has to cover the things inside your condo, it’s important to choose your personal property limits wisely. Consider this a general guide for choosing the appropriate limits.

Is Kin’s Condo Insurance Right for You?

If you own a condo, you need condo insurance. It’s the only policy that is designed to work with your condo association’s master insurance policy.

For Kin in particular, we can offer you condo coverage if:

• You own a townhouse, rowhouse, or unit in a high rise.

• Your condo is used as your primary residence, seasonal residence, or you rent it on home-share sites like Airbnb.

• The condo is owned by an LLC or trust.

Condo Insurance vs.
Homeowners Insurance?

Unlike homeowners insurance, which must cover the entire structure of the home inside and out, condo insurance only needs to cover the interior of the home because it has help from the HOA’s master policy.

That usually means condo insurance is much less expensive than homeowners insurance.

Condo insurance and homeowners insurance also differ on personal liability. As a condo owner, your personal liability exposure may be much less than a homeowner who has to worry about visitor injuries anywhere on their property: their driveway, backyard, porch, etc. A guest injury that happens in your condominium’s shared areas may end up being the HOA’s responsibility.