Insurance news and information

Want to find yourself on the wrong end of a discrimination suit? Just ban children from playing on your association’s grounds.

That’s how a Boston-based condominium association found itself paying out a $150,000 in fines for discriminating against families with children. The settlement has the association paying $130,000 to the families in question and $20,000 in civil penalties. This lawsuit and the subsequent fallout gives us a prime example of an association over-stepping it’s bounds. In addition to restricting the ability of children to play outside, the association was accused of intimidating, threatening, and interfering with the rights afforded to it’s residents under the Fair Housing Act. This entire situation goes to show how difficult it can be at times for an association board to manage the needs and desires of all residents.

This is not the first case where an association has found itself on the wrong end of a discrimination suit. Other substantial instances involve associations in Indiana, Atlanta, Florida, and Washington. Regardless of guilt or if the discrimination was intentional or simply a bi-product of an otherwise harmless determination by the board, these situations can be costly to defend and extremely costly should you be found guilty.

Read more…

Almost every state in the country has been experiencing below freezing weather this year.  The mid-west and northeast states have been hit hard by the freezing weather. These states are used to this type of winter weather.  The southern states, such as Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina are normally immune to the long periods of freezing weather.  Not so during the winter of 2010 and 2011.

A freeze up condition of your sprinkler system can cause an obstruction that will prevent the sprinkler system from working properly.  The sprinkler piping could also burst and cause extensive water damage to your building and contents.  

The following are a few precautions you can take to help prevent the freezing of water-based sprinkler systems:  Read more…

Suppose your resident is behind in his payments to your condo association. Now suppose he has someone renting his unit. Should you as a condo association approach the renter and attempt to collect the owner’s rent instead of waiting for the delinquent resident to pay up? Can you?

Likely not. Your agreement is not with the person renting the apartment or condo. Your written agreement was signed by the resident in question. The renter has no idea usually that the resident isn’t paying his bills, nor does the renter have control over the resident’s actions. Also, renters pay maintenance fees as part of their rent payment to the owner. It’s the owner’s responsibility to forward those payments to the association, not the renter’s. Neither the association’s agreement with the owner nor the agreement between the renter and owner is set up to force a renter to pay an owner’s expenses, nor should they. Read more…

Too often I’m faced with condo associations that make a critical mistake when insuring their properties – they simply renew without looking. It’s critical because in many cases, policies are renewed year after year without regard to changing property values, changing conditions, aging equipment and facilities, or changing occupancy levels.

And in today’s uncertain real estate market, those criteria could mean you’re either underinsured and assuming more risk than you need to or you’re paying for too much coverage. Let’s look at it from an underinsured perspective. Suppose your association purchased a new policy five years ago. At that time, the property consisted of three buildings, a pool, and six acres with a paved walking trail. The property value then was $1.2 million. Read more…

Tough economic times often force tough economic decisions for apartment and homeowner associations. Board members, eager to trim expenses, will often look to insurance policies for ways to decrease coverage and lower premiums.

Too often associations have claims denied because the coverage they once had was dropped due to budget concerns. Also, many association boards failed to understand critical elements of their policies, leaving them with unnecessary or unknown gaps in coverage. The most common areas that cause trouble for associations include: Read more…