Condo Insurance in Pennsylvania

If you're anything like some of our clients who are thinking about downsizing from the family home to a condominium in Pennsylvania, it may be taking you a while to wrap your head around just what condo insurance covers. You're familiar with property insurance since you've been buying it for many years. It's the notion of the condo association being responsible for insuring some parts of the community, but not others.

What is the Condo Association Responsible For?

The board of your condo association is, for lack of a better term, the governing body of your condominium. It is made up of fellow tenants who have been elected by you and your neighbors to uphold the condos bylaws. Board member's responsibilities include:

• Determining the condo's expenses and assessing members for any repairs.
• Making and enforcing safety and behavior rules.
• Overseeing property maintenance in common areas.

It also administers the condominium fees you and all your neighbors pay to cover for common needs such as garbage collection, maintenance, landscaping of outdoor common areas, and sewer. It also pays for insurance of all shared areas such as the parking area, pool, playground, and central pathways.

However, you are on your own when it comes to purchasing a condo insurance policy to cover your interior living space and its contents. And it is here, that the boundaries of responsibility begin to get hazy.

Which Areas of Your Condo Must You Insure?

Typically, condo owners are responsible for insuring the interior against damage incurred in the event of vandalism, fire, smoke damage, and/or weather damage. It's also necessary to purchase liability insurance in case anyone is injured in your unit. However, things can get a little hazy in the language of some bylaws regarding where association protection ends and unit owner responsibility begins. Terms such as all-inclusive, bare-walls-in, special entity, and wall-studs-in call for special scrutiny.  

Your standard condo insurance policy provides the following 5 areas of insurance coverage.  

1. Dwelling (aka your unit) including improvements, alterations, additions, etc.
2. Personal property, your personal belongings ie. the stuff you own
3. Loss of use providing additional living expenses when your place becomes uninhabitable
4. Personal liability aka liability coverage when you’re sued or accidentally caused harm to others
5. Medical payments to others for covering any issues that arose at your place, or anywhere else (under $5,000)

Let Us Know How We Can Help You

If you need help in interpreting legalese and determining what the condo association does and does not cover, we invite you to reach out to us at The Good Insurance Group, LLC and talk to our condo insurance specialists here in Bloomsburg, PA. We can also help you determine how much insurance you should buy.