Condo Insurance in Texas

What condo insurance covers in Texas

Condo insurance, written on an HO-6 form, covers the part of a Texas condominium the unit owner is responsible for and the association’s policy is not.

An HO-6 carries six pieces:

• Coverage A, building property, meaning the interior finishes and improvements inside the unit
• Coverage C, personal property
• Coverage D, loss of use, for somewhere to live while the unit is being repaired
• Coverage E, personal liability
• Coverage F, medical payments to a guest
• Loss assessment, which pays the owner’s share of a charge the association levies after a loss

A condo owner buys a smaller policy than a homeowner and a more complicated one. The size of the gap depends entirely on a document the owner probably has not read, which is the association’s master policy.

What the association master policy covers

A Texas condominium association carries a master policy on the building, and Texas Property Code §82.111, part of the Uniform Condominium Act, requires property insurance and commercial general liability on the common elements, with that property insurance taking in the units themselves in a building with stacked units but leaving out improvements and betterments a unit owner installed.

Master policies come in three shapes, and the declaration and bylaws say which one applies:

• Bare walls, which stops at the unfinished studs, subfloor, and ceiling and leaves everything inward to the owner
• Single entity, which includes fixtures and finishes as originally installed but not the owner’s upgrades
• All-in, which includes fixtures, finishes, and improvements inside the unit

Reading the wrong assumption into that document is a common condo insurance mistake in Texas. An owner who assumes all-in but has bare walls is underinsured by the cost of every cabinet, floor, and countertop in the unit.

Walls-in coverage and how to size it

Walls-in coverage is Coverage A on an HO-6, and it pays to rebuild the interior of a Texas condo unit rather than the building around it.

What walls-in coverage is sized against:

• Cabinets, countertops, and built-in appliances
• Flooring, wall finishes, interior doors, and trim
• Plumbing and electrical fixtures inside the unit
• Any improvement or upgrade the owner or a previous owner installed

The number comes from a rebuild estimate for the interior, not from the purchase price and not from the county appraisal. The land, the structure, and the roof are the association’s problem and are already inside the master policy limit.

Owners of older Texas units renovated over two or three ownerships tend to be furthest below the right number.

Loss assessment coverage, and why the limit is usually too low

Loss assessment coverage pays a condo owner’s share of a special assessment the association charges after a covered loss.

Two situations trigger it in Texas. A loss larger than the master policy limit gets assessed back across the units, and the master policy deductible itself gets assessed back across the units after a hail or hurricane claim.

Where owners get caught short:

• Loss assessment is a small sub-limit on the HO-6 form, often a fraction of Coverage A
• Master policy deductibles on coastal and hail-exposed Texas buildings can be large percentages of the building value
• The deductible assessment can arrive even when the unit itself was not damaged

Checking the master policy deductible before setting the loss assessment limit is the whole exercise.

What Aulona Insurance Group can place

Aulona Insurance Group places condo unit owner coverage and renters coverage across Texas, on the HO-6 and renters forms.

Aulona Insurance Group places:

• HO-6 condo unit owner policies, including walls-in and loss assessment coverage
• Renters policies for tenants in a condo or an apartment
• Coastal condo units, alongside the separate windstorm policy
• Condo units the owner rents out, on a landlord dwelling form
• Flood through the National Flood Insurance Program and Write Your Own carriers, which matters on a ground-floor unit
• Personal umbrella coverage above the home and auto liability limits

Luka Cenaj, the agency’s licensed principal, goes through the master policy certificate on a recorded call before anything is quoted.

Where Aulona Insurance Group is not the right fit

Aulona Insurance Group places the unit owner’s policy, not the association’s, and the difference is worth stating plainly.

Outside what Aulona Insurance Group places on a condominium:

• The association’s master policy, which is a commercial habitational risk; the agency’s small-business program caps a business owners policy at $5 million of total insured value per location
• A reading of the declaration on the association’s behalf, which is the board’s document and its counsel’s question rather than an agent’s

An owner serving on a Texas condo board should take the master policy to a commercial habitational market. The unit owner’s HO-6 and the loss assessment limit behind it are the parts this agency places.

What moves the price of a Texas condo policy

The premium on a Texas HO-6 is set by the insurer, not by Aulona Insurance Group. Property is rated by location, and the county and the distance to the coast are the first inputs.

An HO-6 rating worksheet asks for:

• The Coverage A walls-in limit, built from an interior rebuild estimate
• What the master policy covers, since bare walls forces a higher unit limit than all-in
• The loss assessment limit chosen, measured against the master policy deductible
• Where the unit sits in the building, since a ground floor unit carries water exposure and a top floor unit carries wind and roof exposure
• Claim history on the unit and the deductible selected

Aulona Insurance Group publishes no premium on this site and does not rank insurers by price.

What to have ready before you ask an agent

A condo file is a paperwork file, and the association holds the paperwork.

Have these ready:

• The association’s master policy certificate, showing the coverage type and the deductible
• The condominium declaration or bylaws section that says who insures what
• Unit square footage, the floor it sits on, and the year the building was built
• A list of interior upgrades and roughly when they were installed
• The current HO-6 declarations page, if the unit is already insured
• Any prior claim on the unit or a recent assessment from the association

The call runs on (945) 600-6008, in English or Albanian, and the master policy certificate is the document that settles the rest of the list.