Your HOA Insurance Renewal: What to Ask, and What the Increase Does to Dues

Last verified: September 29, 2026 · See updates

The renewal quote is higher. Before the board votes on dues, find out which of three numbers moved: the insured replacement cost of the buildings, the loss settlement basis, or the deductible. This page gives you the questions to ask, the coverage rules your owners’ lenders impose even where your state does not, and a premium increase carried line by line through the annual budget workbook.

Start with three numbers, not the premium

A premium is an output. Three inputs produce it. A board that asks about all three finds out what happened.

1. The coverage amount, meaning the insured replacement cost of the buildings. Premium is charged on insured value. If the replacement cost estimate rose, the quote rises with no change in rate.
2. The loss settlement basis. Replacement cost pays what a repair costs today. Actual cash value subtracts depreciation. The difference shows up only after a loss, when it can no longer be fixed.
3. The deductibles, in dollars. One all-perils figure is not the whole answer. Wind, hail and named storm often carry a separate percentage deductible. A percentage of a large insured value is a large number.

Each of those links is documented. Fannie Mae requires the coverage amount to equal at least 100% of estimated replacement cost value. The Colorado Division of Insurance says insurers “have been more insistent that properties be insured-to-value.” The Insurance Information Institute studied commercial buildings and reported an estimated 90% were underinsured. Of those valued in 2020 to 2021, 68% were underinsured by 25% or more. No source we read measures that whole chain for community associations. So treat the mechanism as documented, and its size at your address as a question for your broker.

The gap that can leave you compliant and unsellable

State statutes and mortgage market rules set different floors. The lender floor is usually the higher one. Meeting your statute is not the same as keeping your owners able to sell and refinance.

Read the deductible row across. A Washington or Nevada association can satisfy its statute with 80% of actual cash value and any deductible its board calls reasonable. The same policy can still stop a buyer getting a Fannie Mae loan. Hawaii shows the size of that gap. A 2025 bill in the state legislature found condominium master policy deductibles had moved from roughly $10,000 to $25,000 per unit per occurrence to as much as $250,000. That is five times the Fannie Mae per unit maximum.

Two more differences belong in the conversation. The Colorado Division of Insurance notes that 10% deductibles “may be outside the scope of some traditional loans.” That is the same problem stated from the regulator’s side. The Federal Housing Administration also sets its own fidelity figure. HUD’s FHA Resource Center answer KA-03928 states the bond must cover three months of aggregate assessments plus reserve funds, or the minimum required by state law. Fannie Mae’s three month figure does not add reserves. If your project is FHA approved, the larger number governs.

What the market did in 2025 and 2026, so you can ask which part moved

Boards are often told the increase is “the market.” For a 2026 renewal that explanation has got weaker. The published numbers let you say so politely.

• Commercial property rate increases slowed sharply. The NAIC reported commercial property rate increases of 1.9% in the second quarter of 2025, down from 8.9% in the second quarter of 2024.
• Reinsurance got cheaper, not dearer. The reinsurance trade site Artemis publishes the Guy Carpenter US property catastrophe rate on line index. It fell 6.2% at the January 1, 2025 renewal and 12% at January 1, 2026, then a further 14% at April 1, 2026. The index measures dollars paid for coverage on a consistent program base. It also reflects exposure growth and buying habits, so read it as a direction, not as your rate.
• Construction goods inflation largely stopped in 2023. The Associated General Contractors compiles producer price index data for inputs to construction from Bureau of Labor Statistics series. It rose 18.7% in 2021 and 14.5% in 2022. Then came −1.6% in 2023, 0.9% in 2024 and 0.7% in 2025, for a cumulative 41.4% since February 2020. Roofing contractors are the outlier at 59.8% cumulative.

The cost of rebuilding did jump, and it jumped four and five years ago. If a 2026 quote is up sharply, the likelier causes sit with your own association. A new replacement cost appraisal, a change in deductible structure, your claims record, or catastrophe exposure at your address. A broker can itemise all four.

One trap runs the other way. The NAIC also reports direct premiums written by line, and those figures grew faster: homeowners 13.4% and commercial multiple peril non-liability 8.9% in 2024 against 2023. Premium volume blends rate change, exposure growth and rising insured values. It is not a rate increase, and it should not be quoted to a board as one.

No one can tell you the average, including us

There is no published national average master policy premium for community associations, in dollars or as a percentage, for any year. We looked in federal and state regulator sources and did not find one. Regulators publish personal lines. Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation property insurance stability reports for July 1, 2025 and January 1, 2026 both cover personal residential and condominium unit owner policies. Neither breaks out commercial residential or association master policies. Treat any national “average HOA premium” figure as unsourced until someone shows you the collection behind it.

Watch for a related substitution. The best measured premium numbers in the United States are for homeowners policies, and those are not yours. The Government Accountability Office put the national average homeowners premium at $2,235 in 2019 and $2,829 in 2024. That is a 27% rise before inflation and 3% after it. The report does not cover commercial property or condominium master policies, and it says so.

What boards have reported, and how much weight each figure carries

Association specific evidence exists, but none of it is a national probability sample. The table holds all of it we could verify, with the limits each figure carries.

The same CAI survey recorded how associations paid for it: 50% raised individual assessments, 43% drew on operating funds and 7% imposed a special assessment. That is the decision in front of your board, and the next two sections put numbers on it.

Fourteen questions for your broker

Send these in an email before the renewal meeting and ask for written answers. The rule behind each one follows it, so you can see why the answer counts.

1. What coverage amount is this quote written on, and who produced the replacement cost figure? Fannie Mae accepts an estimate from the insurer, from the project’s insurance risk appraisal, or from a qualified professional. Florida condominiums must have the replacement cost determined at least once every 3 years by an independent appraisal or an update of one.
2. How much of the increase is the coverage amount and how much is the rate? Ask for last year’s coverage amount and this year’s side by side. This single question separates a valuation change from a pricing change.
3. Is loss settlement on a replacement cost basis, and are roofs settled differently? Fannie Mae requires replacement cost with roofs as the stated exception, so an actual cash value roof is permitted and may still cost your owners a large share of a roof claim.
4. What is the all-perils deductible in dollars, and does it exceed 5% of the coverage amount or $50,000 per unit? Either breach puts owners’ financing at risk.
5. Is there a separate wind, hail or named storm deductible, and what is it in dollars? A percentage deductible has to be converted to a dollar figure before a board can judge it. Each separate peril deductible must meet the Fannie Mae maximum in its own right.
6. If we are in a named storm state, is the hurricane deductible on an annual or a per hurricane basis? For commercial residential policies Florida requires the insurer to offer both (Fla. Stat. 627.701). On a per hurricane basis, two storms in one season mean two deductibles.
7. Does the policy include ordinance or law coverage A, B and C? Fannie Mae requires all three: loss to the undamaged portion of a building, demolition costs, and increased cost of construction. An older building repaired to current code is where this gets used.
8. Do we have equipment breakdown coverage, and at what amount? Required by Fannie Mae wherever the project has central heating or cooling, at the lesser of $2 million or the replacement cost of the buildings housing the boiler or machinery.
9. Is general liability at least $1 million per occurrence, with the association as named insured and a severability of interests provision? That provision is what stops one owner’s claim being denied because of the board’s or another owner’s negligence.
10. If we have more than 20 units, what is our fidelity or crime coverage, and which formula was used? Three months of assessments applies where the association keeps adequate financial controls; the maximum funds in its custody applies where it does not. Documented controls can lower the bond you need, which makes the controls you already have worth writing down.
11. Are you offering our manager’s crime policy in place of ours? Fannie Mae states plainly that a management agent’s own policy is not an acceptable alternative to one naming the association.
12. Are we in a Special Flood Hazard Area, and does our flood limit reach the NFIP maximum? The residential condominium building association policy caps building coverage at $250,000 multiplied by the number of units.
13. What is on our loss runs for the last five years? Ask for the document, not a summary. Public regulator data on association underwriting factors does not exist, so your own claims record is the only evidence about your account that anyone can show you.
14. What would move this quote down, and what would it cost us to do? A higher deductible the board can fund, a completed repair, an updated appraisal and documented financial controls are all things an association can change. Get the trade-off priced.

Take the written answers and score two or three quotes side by side. The vendor comparison scorecard is built for exactly this: weighted criteria fixed before you look at the prices.

What the increase does to next year’s budget

The arithmetic below runs on a real file. The annual budget workbook ships with a fictional 24 unit condominium: 8 one bedroom units at $340 a month, 10 two bedroom at $410 and 6 three bedroom at $470. Its Operating_Expenses tab carries a line called “Master property & liability policy” budgeted at $21,000, and a separate directors and officers line at $2,000.

Three things follow, and they are the ones to put in front of the board.

• The premium increase alone is $36.46 per unit per month. $10,500 divided by 24 units and 12 months.
• A comfortable budget becomes a deficit. The $6,780 surplus turns into a $3,720 shortfall, and the fully funded dues figure passes what owners already pay. At $378.13 the association had room; at $414.58 it needs $12.92 a unit more than the $401.67 it charges today.
• Insurance goes from 27.6% of the operating budget to 35.8%. For comparison, the Minnesota metro survey measured a move from 26.9% to 34.4% across 2022 to 2024. That is 74 self-selected responses from one metropolitan area, and it is the only measured figure for this ratio we found anywhere.

The board has three ways to close $10,500, and the workbook will show the cost of each. Raise dues by about $36.46 a unit a month and the budget balances with the surplus intact. Absorb it from the surplus and reserve contributions still get funded, but only once, and the surplus is gone. Cut the reserve contribution and the repair it was saving for arrives unfunded, which is how a special assessment gets built. The reserve contribution calculator shows what the third option does to the funding percentage before anyone votes on it.

What the deductible does if you have a claim

A deductible is a bill the association pays first. For most small associations it is larger than the whole operating fund.

Where that bill lands is set by your statute and your declaration. Florida is explicit. All property insurance deductibles and damages above the coverage limits under association policies are a common expense. The board must set the amount of the deductibles at a meeting held under Fla. Stat. 718.112(2)(e), based on available funds and predetermined assessment authority. A common expense means the budget or an assessment on every owner. That makes the size of the deductible a board decision on the record, not an insurance detail.

Two practical consequences follow. First, a board that takes a higher deductible to hold the premium down has swapped a certain annual cost for an uncertain future one. Record that trade in the minutes, along with where the money would come from. Second, owners need to know. Their own unit policies may carry loss assessment coverage, and how much they should buy depends on the association’s deductible. If the board changes it, tell every owner in writing. The special assessment calculator shows what the deductible would cost per unit under your own allocation method, before the renewal is bound.

A renewal timeline

This sequence is our suggested practice, not a legal requirement. It is built around budget season. Check your own declaration and statute for notice periods that bind you.

1. 120 days out. Ask the broker for the current declarations page, the schedule of coverages, the loss runs and the replacement cost basis. Put the renewal on the annual operations calendar so it lands before the budget vote, not after it.
2. 90 days out. Send the fourteen questions. Ask whether the broker intends to market the account, and to which carriers. Decide whether a second broker should quote it.
3. 60 days out. Compare quotes on the scorecard. Convert every percentage deductible to dollars. Check each quote against the lender rules in the table above before comparing premiums.
4. 30 days out. Put the chosen quote and the deductible decision to the board as an agenda item with the budget effect attached, using the workbook figures. In Florida the deductible decision has its own meeting procedure.
5. After binding. File the policy and the certificate where the next treasurer will find them, per the record retention checklist. Post the deductible and any coverage change to owners, and note in the books that account 5110 carries the new figure.

What this page does not cover

• It is not all fifty states. We quote Florida, Washington and Nevada because we could read their statutory text at the state’s own site. The 49 state comparison table and the state hub carry the wider picture, and small association exemptions may mean parts of your act do not reach you at all.
• The Nevada text came from the Legislature’s own archived reprint of existing law in A.B. 324 of the 2025 session, because the codified NRS 116 chapter page truncates before section 116.3113 on every attempt. A.B. 324 does not appear on the 2025 signed bills list, so the reprinted text appears to remain current. A.B. 324 would have made units divided by common walls optional in the property coverage, which is a sign the point is being argued in that state.
• RCW 64.34.352 is marked “Effective until January 1, 2028.” Washington condominiums should check which chapter governs them, since the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act section (RCW 64.90.470) reaches condominiums, cooperatives, plat communities and miscellaneous communities.
• We could not source roof age limits or roof payment schedules. These come up constantly in broker conversations. We found no government, regulator or professional body document setting them, so this page states no roof age cutoff. Ask your broker for the schedule in writing.
• We could not quantify how much of a reinsurance cost change reaches an association’s premium. No source we read gives a pass-through ratio, so none is offered here.
• It is not insurance, legal or accounting advice. An independent agent or broker who writes community association business, and your association’s attorney, are the people to read your declaration and your policy against each other.

Pairs well with

• The annual budget workbook, which produced every figure in the budget example.
• The special assessment calculator, for what a deductible or an uncovered loss costs per unit.
• The reserve contribution calculator, for what cutting the reserve line to pay a premium does to funding.
• The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac condo reserve requirement, the other place lender rules reach past your statute.
• The vendor comparison scorecard, for scoring two or three quotes on fixed criteria.
• The finances and reserves hub and the annual operations calendar.

FAQ

Text on this page is licensed CC BY 4.0. Suggested citation: CommonKeel, "Your HOA Insurance Renewal: What to Ask, and What the Increase Does to Dues", https://commonkeel.com/finances/hoa-insurance-renewal/, verified September 29, 2026. Based on published statutes, lender guides, regulator documents and surveys read on the dates shown; not hands-on testing of any insurance product, and not insurance advice.