Hi, I'm Robert Zabbia. I'm an Allstate agency owner in North Massapequa, New York. I'm here to talk about condo insurance.
When you own a condo unit, your association's insurance may cover part of the structure. It's a good idea to ask for a copy of your condo association's bylaws. That may help you learn exactly what the association covers, so you can make sure you have enough coverage in place on your own insurance policy.
You're usually responsible for insuring what's inside your condo: furniture or even fixtures, such as kitchen cabinets. That's where a condo insurance policy may help. It typically offers three basic types of protection: building property protection, personal property coverage and personal liability coverage.
A customer called me one morning. A water heater pipe had burst overnight in her condo unit. She needed to file a claim for water damage to her floors and furniture. I checked her condo insurance policy and assured her that she had the proper coverage to help in this scenario.
Fortunately, her furniture just needed to be cleaned — but her floors needed major work.
She had enough building property coverage in place to pay for the floor repair, which ended up costing about $24,000. The personal property coverage on her policy helped reimburse her $2,000 toward the cost of cleaning her furniture.
All in all, her condo insurance covered $26,000 in damage. She only had to pay her $1,000 deductible. If she hadn't had condo insurance, she would have been stuck paying much more out of her own pocket.
