Community Association Insurance: The Who, What, and How for Brokers
Community associations come in all shapes and sizes. However, no matter whether your client represents an HOA, a COA, or some other collection of letters, they’ll need community association insurance to keep them financially secure.
Insurance brokers who are working to grow their clientele need to understand who they’re selling to, what they want, and how to win them over. Armed with this info, you can earn your clients’ trust and get them the insurance policies they want and need.
Who Needs Community Association Insurance?
Community association insurance caters to a variety of associations. To successfully sell this kind of insurance, you’ll need to know your clients and their unique needs.
The most common purchasers of community association insurance are:
- Condominium Associations (COAs)
- Homeowners Associations (HOAs)
- Planned Urban Developments (PUDs)
- Master Associations
- Co-Ops
- Office Condominium Associations
Each of these associations will want something a little different in their insurance coverage. For instance, condominium associations often need coverage for both habitational buildings and other properties like clubhouses, pools, or sidewalks. On the other hand, for HOAs you’ll need to figure out whether they just need coverage for common areas or whether more property insurance is needed.
What Does Community Association Insurance Cover?
Community association insurance coverage varies widely based on the type of association, the number of units, and the unique exposures of the association. However, most community association insurance should include:
- Property Insurance: Provides coverage for physical structures and other property such as clubhouses, gatehouses, fences, roads, sidewalks, light poles, mailboxes, playground equipment, detached garages, and swimming pools.
- General Liability: Provides coverage if an association is held liable because of an accident on the premises. The most common accidents are slips/falls or an incident around the swimming pool.
- Crime or Fidelity Insurance: This specialty insurance provides coverage for employee theft, forgery, or alteration.
- D&O Insurance: D&O insurance provides coverage for defense (expenses) and indemnity (awards and settlements) of wrongful acts and allegations against the board of directors. Common suits this provides coverage against include allegations of fund mismanagement, discrimination suits, and breaches of contract.
- Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI): ELPI provides coverage against claims made by board members or volunteers alleging discrimination (sex, race, age, or disability), wrongful termination, harassment, or other employment-related issues.
- Umbrella Insurance: Additional liability coverage on top of other liability policies if their underlying coverages are exhausted.
It’s important for brokers to look for specific coverages their clients might need within their Package policy – such as pollutant cleanup, water backup of sewers & drains, and loss of maintenance fees. All of these are particularly popular options that can make your client’s coverage more comprehensive.
To learn more about what our insurance experts can offer you and your clients, check out Distinguished’s Community Association Insurance.
How to Get Your Clients Insurance that Exceeds Expectations
To successfully win business from community associations, you need to do more than just know the basics of community association insurance and what it covers. You also need to understand what clients are looking for from brokers so you can get them insurance that goes above and beyond your competition.
Worry-free Experience
Clients want to know that whatever happens, they’ll be covered. You can give clients this worry-free experience by offering:
- Local Expertise: Every state has different statutes that associations need to abide by. Knowing the rules of your jurisdiction inside and out helps make sure your clients are properly insured.
- Insurance Knowledge: Most community association boards are made up of volunteers who don’t have a lot of insurance expertise. They’ll rely on you to help them navigate and explain what kind of coverages they need.
- Client Familiarity: Most board members have other things in their lives and don’t want to spend more time on insurance matters than they need to. You can be their proactive voice that’s looking after their insurance needs so that they have less to deal with.
Distinguished can help you sell HOA, COA, and PUD insurance by offering you assistance in being the expert they’re looking for. Our experienced underwriters can help you get your clients coverage that suits their needs; plus, we offer Guaranteed Replacement Cost and Special Form Coverage, so your clients know they’ll be covered even in the event of a total loss.
Higher Limits
Many associations may want higher limits of coverage, for peace of mind. Distinguished offers higher limits to meet these desires.
For instance, your clients could get policies with:
- Up to $5 million in Crime insurance
- Up to $3 million in D&O insurance
- Up to $10 million in Umbrella insurance
By having access to insurance policies with these kinds of flexible, higher-limit coverages, you aren’t hamstrung when clients are looking for more coverage. With Distinguished, you can get your clients the kind of limits they’re looking for.
Sell More Policies With Distinguished
With more than 25+ years of experience, Distinguished is an expert in community association insurance. We have developed the relationships with carriers to give your clients the coverages they need
Learn more by checking out our Community Association Package insurance page. You can also read about our standalone D&O, Crime, and Community Association Umbrella insurance products. If you’re interested in submitting new business, register your brokerage and then fill out our application form (Package for associations with residential exposures) or submit-quote-bind through our online portal.
Please contact our insurance experts if you have any other questions.
Distinguished Community Association FAQs
Here are some of the questions we most commonly get asked. If you have any other questions, please contact one of our insurance experts.
Do we have to complete your application to submit?
Yes, we require a complete application. Our Package program for associations with residential exposures requires a completed copy of our Excel Community Association Package application along with 3–5 years of loss runs to be sent to communityassociation@distinguished.com. Turnaround times can be around 1–2 weeks for these kinds of applications.
For Package submissions without residential exposures as well as our Crime, D&O, and Umbrella coverages, we have a user-friendly online portal for submissions where we provide a 24–48-hour turnaround.
Do you require an SOV?
Brokers submitting a Package application for an association with residential exposures will need to fill in the SOV tab on our Excel Community Association Package application.
Can you offer Earthquake and Flood?
Currently, we don’t offer these coverages in our Community Association insurance program.
About Distinguished Programs
Distinguished Programs is a leading national insurance Program Manager providing specialized insurance programs to brokers and agents with specific expertise in Real Estate, Community Associations, Hotels, and Restaurants. Property and liability products are distributed through a national network of agents and brokers. Serving the same core markets and partnering with the most stable and reputable carriers, Distinguished Programs’ high-limit umbrella programs remain the clear choice in its areas of specialty for superior coverage, competitive pricing, and attentive service. Through thoughtful innovation, stemming back to 1995, Distinguished Programs fosters growth and opportunities for its brokers, carriers, and employees.
View a full list of our programs and submit business with Distinguished.
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