Scenario 1: You live in a condo that you ownIn this case you need a condo owner insurance policy to protect you against the following six risks: - Contents: This can include such items as furniture, electronics, household goods, clothing, etc. Most policies will protect your contents against water damage, as well as other types of loss.
- Theft: This item is connected to the previous one. If any of property be lost due to burglary, most Condo Insurance policies would cover it.
- Upgrades: You might consider insuring any upgrades or improvements that have been made, including those during the original construction or by a previous owner. Examples of such upgrades are hardwood floors, new cabinets or counter tops, crown moulding, and wallcoverings.
- Personal and Premises Liability: Should you, for example, flood a few unit owners beneath you, they can sue you for damages – this coverage will deal with it. It also protects you if somebody gets injured while in your premises while visiting your unit.
- Special insurance assessments: There are situations where commercial condo policies do not cover all damage and condo corporation passed assessments to unit owns (e.g. if there is not enough coverage in a commercial policy). As a condo unit owner, you can protect yourself against insurance-related assessment by having the right personal condo policy.
- Your locker: It is useful to know that your private locker is considered to be part of your insured condo and thus is typically included into the policy as long as you mention its existence to your insurer.
Your condo insurance policy will cover a lot of things but there is also a commercial condo insurance policy that will cover shared or common areas such as elevators, halls, recreation room, stairs, etc. It also takes care of the exterior of the building and the roof.
It seems easy on paper but in reality, insurance claims in condos can get complicated because of the two policies involved. It can take some time for the insurer who provides your personal condo insurance policy and insurer that provides the condo corporation’s commercial insurance policy to figure out who pays for what.